


and now i'm covered in the colors

by ThePackWantstheD



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Green Lantern - All Media Types
Genre: Family, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Hair Dyeing, Healing, Healing through hair dye, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-02-24 12:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13213554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePackWantstheD/pseuds/ThePackWantstheD
Summary: Jason would be damned before he spent the rest of his life with the actions of the Joker and Talia marked on his body.





	1. pink isn't just a color, it's an attitude too

**Author's Note:**

> I posted [this](http://thepackwantsthed.tumblr.com/post/169040093350/what-if-jason-dyed-the-white-streak-not-just) headcanon and the more I thought about the more I wanted to write it so...

"Um.... Do you need any help?"

Jason had been staring down at the collection of brightly colored boxes, samples of fake hair attached to the shelf underneath each one, but now he looked up.

Standing to his side was a teenage girl. She was dressed in a mint green dress covered in pale pink flowers. Her [hair](https://www.instagram.com/p/BUR0jXKD_Ye/?hl=en&taken-by=lisakawaiifinds) was short, cutting off right below her chin and styled in tight, pale pink curls that matched the flowers on the dress. Jason was kind of impressed by the coordination. Jason had to be two or three years older than her, but he couldn't be bothered to wear anything other than jeans and the first tee-shirt he'd grabbed off the floor that didn't make him wrinkle his nose.

He eyed her for a moment, considering the color of her hair.

He hadn't really thought about what he wanted. He knew that he didn't want to look at the white streak anymore, because every time he looked at it he thought about the Joker and his death and Talia's decision to throw him in the pit. He knew that he didn't want to dye it back to black, because he'd grown a lot in the past five years but looking in the mirror and seeing a head of black hair would have reminded him too much of what he'd been like before he died.

Pink was a nice color though. He'd always been partial towards reds and pink was basically a light red.

"Yeah," Jason said. He pointed to her hair, "Is that color in one of these bottles?"

She stared at him for a moment before fumbling out, "Uh, yes."

"Which one?"

"That one," she said, pointing to one on the second of the five shelves.

"Awesome, thanks," Jason said. He reached for the bottle, turning it over to look at the instructions on the back. When he looked back up, the girl was still standing there. She looked as though she couldn't decide whether or not to dash away from him. Jason used her indecision as an excuse to ask, "Did you do yours yourself?"

"Yes," she answered, nodding a little bit. Some of her nervousness about talking to him, and he really wasn't sure if that was because she was anxious about talking to a stranger or if he was _that_ intimidating, seemed to have washed away. "I've done it a few times."

"Can you show me how to do this?" Jason asked, holding the box up. "I'll give you twenty bucks for doing it and another thirty if it doesn't look like trash."

She fumbled for an answer, mouth opening and closing like a guppy, before finally saying, "Okay?"

* * *

 

The girl's name was Camilla. She was nineteen, a few months shy of being three years younger than Jason, and she was a first year at Gotham University.

Her best friend was named Tiffany and Tiffany's brother Tony was her boyfriend. She'd originally been at the mall with the two of them, but they'd started being assholes so she'd left and ended up at the beauty shop. She'd started talking to Jason because he was cute and looked a little lost and she was angry enough at Tony that she wanted him to catch her talking to a cute boy. She knew it was kind of shitty and manipulative, but Tony had been flirting with another girl and Tiffany had thought it was okay since he "wasn't serious about it."

She'd taken Jason up on his offer so that she could put the fifty up towards her text books for the next semester. It meant that she would be able to use more of her paycheck, she had a part time job at a fast food restaurant on campus, to get her father a better birthday gift than she'd been planning.

Jason learned all of this during the hour and a half the two of them spent in the men's bathroom in the mall.

Jason hadn't been expecting it to take that long to dye hair, but Camilla's hair looked fine so he decided to go with it.

He liked her.

He hadn't really been expecting it since she was just a random girl he'd met in a shop.

It wasn't really about her. It was just that most of the people he'd interacted with since coming back to life were criminals, family, or other vigilante/superheros. And Kori was the only one in that group of people that Jason had liked immediately. The rest were either thrown into a grave or prison so that he didn't have to deal with them again, refused to leave him alone despite how he felt about it, or grown on him like fungi.

So once the dye had settled, Jason decided he was going to help her with at least one of her problems.

She'd been studiously ignoring the text messages she was getting from Tiffany and Tony, with the exception of a text she sent to let them know that she was fine but she wasn't meeting up with them and she'd found a different ride home, but now Jason convinced her to answer them.

Once she agreed, he set an arm around her shoulders and reeled her in so their cheeks were pressed together. Then he threw on a smile, one that was all predatory and usually had Kyle dragging him to the nearest surface for a make out session, and had her take a picture of them together.

Afterwards Jason took her home, like he'd promised to do when she'd got a text from Tiffany saying they were leaving with or without her.

When he dropped her off, Jason made sure to give her his phone number as well.

People were always telling him he needed more friends, apparently Roy and Kori didn't count since they were his teammates, and he liked Camilla a hell of a lot more than he liked most people he interacted with.

* * *

"Jaybird."

Jason was sitting on the couch in the apartment he shared with Kori and Roy. He was sprawled out across the whole thing, his back against one of the arms while his legs stretched out in front of him. He'd already stripped out of his clothes from earlier that day, changing into a pair of black sweatpants and a bright red Wonder Woman sweatshirt.

When Jason had decided it was time to come back to Gotham, he hadn't really expected Kori and Roy to follow him home. Looking back on it now, though, he realized that he was only ever going to return to Gotham with the two of them in tow. Whereas Jason's relationship with Bruce and the rest of the family had started mending, Roy's relationship with Queen was as terrible as ever so there was no way Roy was returning to Star City wasn't going to happen. Kori made her home in people. She had friends from her days in the Titans, but she'd decided that Roy and Jason were her new home so where the two of them went Kori was going to follow.

"Yeah?" Jason said. He was focused on his phone. Carmilla had been sending him screen shots of Tony and Tiffany's reactions to the picture they'd sent them and Jason had always loved drama.

"Did you know that your hair is pink?" Roy asked.

"Yup."

There was a moment where Jason knew the two of them were probably exchanging some sort of look.

He set his phone down then lifted his body up so he could crane his head back and look at the two of them. They were standing together near the entry way to the living room. Roy was holding a take out bag in one hand while his other hand was holding Kori's, their fingers locked together.

"Do you like it?" Jason asked.

With the way the room was set up, Roy and Kori had been able to see the hair dye the second they walked in the room but only enough to tell that Jason had dyed it. With him leaning the way he was now, the two of them would be have a much better view of it.

"I do," Kori said. She let go of Roy's hand, lifting up and floating across the room. The only aliens and metas in Gotham were villains. Kori couldn't hide what she was, wouldn't even if she could, but she did her best to keep her feet on the ground when she was in public. When they were in the apartment though, she rarely touched the floor. She reached out, running her fingers through the pink streak in Jason's hair. "It's very nice, Jason."

"I do too," Roy said. Jason had closed his eyes as Kori let her hand sweep through the rest of his hair, her fingers scratching momentarily against his scalp, but he heard the rustle as Roy set the takeout bag down on the coffee table. "But why'd you do it?"

Jason hummed a little bit, bumping his head up against Kori's hand.

Moments like this always reminded Jason why he was so thankful for Kori and Roy. Jason was a passionate, physical person and he channeled that in his love as much as he did in his hate. It would have been hard to deal with Kyle being off Earth so often if he didn't have the two of them to love and be loved by.

"It felt like it was time," Jason said after a moment.

He didn't have to say anything other than that. Jason's feelings about the white in his hair was something that he and Roy had talked about before, on those nights when Jason stayed up with Roy to help him fight off the urge for a needle and they both laid themselves bare.

"And you're happy with it?"

"Yes."

"Good." Jason felt Roy tap his hand against his thigh. "We got Chinese while we were out. Do you want yours?"

"Yes." A little reluctantly, he pulled away from Kori's hand and sat himself up straight. Roy was sitting in front of him, leaning forward to shift through the bags on the table. If he leaned back, he would have been resting in between Jason's open knees. "Did you get egg rolls?"

"No, Jason," Roy said, his voice sarcastic but affectionate. "We went to your favorite Chinese place and _didn't_  get you your favorite thing."

"You're enough of an asshole that I wouldn't be surprised if you actually did that," Jason said.

"I don't think antagonizing the person who's passing out the food is really your best option," Roy told him. "Or else your egg rolls might find their way onto Kori's plate and they'll be gone before you can say anything."

"Jason," Kori interrupted, speaking up before Jason could respond to Roy. "Have you spoken to Kyle today?"

"No," Jason said, shaking his head a bit.

"So he hasn't seen this yet?" Kori asked.

"Nope. He won't for a while either," Jason told her. "Last time we talked, he said that he was going to be far enough away that even with Oa's technology he wasn't going to be able to contact Earth."

"That's a shame," Kori said. "You look very pretty and he will be very disappointed he didn't get to see it earlier."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hi everyone! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of this!!
> 
> 2) Camilla played a pretty big role, but she won't in the story as a whole. She'll still pop up since I like the idea that dyeing his hair is helping Jason in heal in a lot of different ways, but from here out the story will focus on different family members seeing Jason's hair for the first time. 
> 
> 3) I went with pre-52 Roy's heroin addiction rather than his alcohol addiction. I feel like Jason has a lot of investment in helping drug users and that that adds a lot of dimensions to his relationship with Roy, even if this story isn't really one where I can explore that.
> 
> 4) I am...very nervous about this piece? This is a bit different from my typical stuff, so I'm not really sure what I'm doing here other than that I'm doing it?? So feedback definitely appreciated. What do you like? What do you hate? Let me know!


	2. green is that from which loveliness arises

"I think we should go with something darker this time," Roy said. "The pink looked nice, but I think the sharp contrast was just a bit too similar to the white, you know?"

"I mean he only had the white for about ten minutes of our friendship, but I know what you mean," Camilla answered. "The pink did look nice though. It softened him a bit, I think."

"Yes," Kori agreed. "The outside matched the inside."

"Okay, but Kyle is supposed to be back on earth soon and he'd probably die if he got back and Jason's hair was green."

"Kyle likes green?" Camilla asked, glancing back at Jason.

"Something like that," Jason said, his amusement clear in his voice.

Dyeing his hair the first time was one of the best decisions Jason had made since coming back to life. Jason had been doing his best to avoid his reflection for years, but ever since they'd put the pink in it'd been less hard. They'd taken the mirror in the bathroom down when they'd first moved in and put it in Roy and Kori's room instead, but now Jason was thinking about asking if they wanted to move it back.

The pink was almost completely gone, though. The magic of the pit had sucked the dye from the strands quickly, pulling almost all of the color from Jason's hair.

So now the four of them were in the same beauty shop that Camilla and Jason had met in a month ago, trying to choose a new color for Jason so they could dye it again before the last of it faded out.

"We could go mint green if we really wanted to do green," Camilla suggested.

"If we're going green for Kyle it should be darker than that," Jason said. Seeing where Roy's eyes had drifted, he added, " _Not_ neon either."

"Perhaps something like?" Kori suggested. She leaned forward, grabbing one of the boxes the shelf and holding it towards Jason. The model on the front of the box had gorgeous [forest green hair.](http://barronslondonsalon.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Green-Hair.jpg) It was a darker shade, but one that was bright and would pop against the dark raven of Jason's natural locks. "I think it would look nice."

"Oh I like it," Roy said.

"I think it'd look nice too," Camilla agreed. She glanced away from the box, turning her attention back to Jason. "Do you like it, Jay?"

"It's nice," Jason agreed. He reached out, plucking the box from Kori's grip. "And Roy's right, Kyle will absolutely lose his shit if he comes home to me wearing his color like this." He looked at it for another moment before nodding. "Yeah. Let's go with this."

"Mission accomplished then!" Roy proclaimed. As they weaved their way through the other shoppers in the aisle, he said, "My stomach has been screaming at me for the past five minutes. Do you guys wanna get food before we head back to the apartment?"

"Yes!" Kori said. "May we get the raw fish?"

"You want to get sushi?" Roy asked. Kori nodded. "I'd be okay with that."

"I've never had sushi before," Camilla said.

"Seriously?" Roy asked. Camilla nodded a bit. "Okay, well, now we _definitely_  have to get sushi."

* * *

After picking up more sushi than they could possibly eat, Roy and Jason agreeing that Camilla's first taste of sushi required a wide variety of choices, the four of them returned to the apartment.

The next few hours were spent feeling happy, having fun, and floating on cloud nine.

They gathered around the coffee table in the living room with the sushi spread out in front of them like a buffet. They watched old episodes of Jersey Shore while they ate, because sushi nights were always trashy television nights.

When everyone had eaten their fill, Camilla having tried one of everything while the others dug into their favorites, everyone piled into the bathroom together. Their bathroom was small and definitely not made to fit four people of their sizes, because Camilla was fairly tiny but the rest of them had far too much muscle and height, but they made it work. They dragged a stool in from the kitchen for Jason to sit in and Camilla stationed herself in front of him while she worked on his hair. Kori sat on the tank of the toilet, her feet resting against the toilet seat, and Roy grabbed a pillow from the living room so he could curl up in the bath tub.

They listened to music from Roy's phone while Camilla worked. They belted out power ballads. When Kori asked about lyrics she didn't know, Roy and Jason argued about what was correct until they had to google the correct answers. Camilla would dance when something good came on, fingers tapping against Jason's hair and hips swaying with the beat.

All of them had spent time together before, because Jason really didn't like Tiffany or Tony from what he knew of how they treated Camilla and did his best to encourage Camilla to spend time with him instead, but this was different than that. This wasn't Roy and Kori watching TV while Jason helped Camilla proof read an essay, it was all four of them in one room laughing and having fun together.

It made Jason think about how lucky he was to have all of them, even if Camilla was a new addition to his life. Roy and Kori - and Kyle when he was around - reminded Jason that he was alive, that he was human. They reminded him that he had the ability to love and that he deserved to have that love returned. They all knew that he had died and what he had done, but they still saw him was someone good and worthy. Camilla made him feel normal. She sent text message rants about how good bands never visited Gotham and responded to Jason's occasional selfies with fire emojis. The others did all those things too, but there was something about Camilla doing those them without knowing everything that had happened that made it mean something different. It made Jason feel so normal that he almost forgot that he was just a functional zombie.

Jason hadn't had many friends before his death. There had been a few Titans who put up with him because he was Dick's kid brother, a few kids from school who all thought he was dead now, and Francis the Gargoyle.

So the fact that he had these people, and that their love and attachment for him went as deep as it did, was something he wasn't likely to stop cherishing.

* * *

Feeling like a full minute had passed since Kyle had caught sight of him, Jason flashed his boyfriend a crooked smile and asked, "What's wrong, Rayner? Cat got your tongue?"

The two of them were in their bedroom, because Kyle had never really seen the point of renting a place for himself on Earth when he wasn't there and their relationship had gotten to a point where Kyle could stop crashing in Hal's guest room. Kyle had come in the window, because god forbid anyone with the power to fly didn't use it to get in places.

He'd been strolling from the window to the bed, already in the middle of some rant about space and how badly he wanted a cheeseburger, when he caught sight of Jason and his mouth had shut with an audible click.

Jason's words must've sparked Kyle out of his surprise, because he said, "You dyed your hair."

"I left you messages about it," Jason pointed out.

"It was pink in the last selfie you sent me."

Jason shrugged a bit. "The dye faded."

Jason had been laid out on the bed, reading a science fiction novel that Roy had recommended but he had put it aside when Kyle came in. It was a good thing he'd thought to put it away, because now Kyle walked across the room and crawled up onto the bed with Jason. When he had Jason under him, his palms on either side of Jason's head and Jason's thighs between Kyle's knees.

"And then you dyed it green," Kyle said. He was leaned down enough that his breath washed across Jason's face. Usually Jason hated when people spoke in his face like this, but right now he was focused on how long it had been since they'd seen each other and how happy he was to have Kyle close again.

"I'm very impressed by your ability to tell what color something is," Jason teased. "That kind of knowledge on color theory really makes it obvious that your an artist."

Kyle didn't react. Instead, he shifted so he could balance his weight on one hand and stretched the other out so he could get strands of hair from Jason's green streak in his fingers. "Green is my color."

Jason thought about saying something about how green was also Hal's color and John's color and Guy's color, but Kyle's body was warm against his and Kyle's fingers were soft when they brushed against his forehead. "Yeah."

There was a quiet moment where Kyle just ran his fingers through Jason's hair, looking down at it with an expression that managed to somehow be both fiercely possessive and soft with awe, and Jason watched him, drinking in the sight of Kyle after two months without any phone calls.

After a few minutes, Kyle said, "I like it."

Jason couldn't help the quiet laugh that came out. "I figured you would."

Kyle looked away from his hair, meeting Jason's eyes, "And you?"

"I like it," Jason said. He reached up to set his hand on Kyle's cheek. Kyle settled into the touch, closing his eyes for a second before focusing back on Jason. "It reminded me of you."

Kyle hummed a bit. He tilted his head so he could bump his nose against Jason's hand before pressing a kiss against his palm. "Sorry I was gone for so long."

"It's okay," Jason told him. He understood that Kyle's duties stretched wider than his. Jason had Gotham, he worked on a bit of a larger scale with Kori and Roy but Gotham was always his focus, but Kyle had entire planets and galaxies that he had to watch over. "I'm just happy you're home now."

Kyle hummed. He leaned down, pressing a kiss against Jason's lips. When he pulled away, he touched their foreheads together and murmured, "I'm happy to be home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello everyone! Thank you for the positive responses to chapter one and I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well!
> 
> 2) chapter title from an Oscar Wilde quote, though it's a bit bastardized. 
> 
> 3) Jason and Kyle are a little too fluffy and light and sappy and sweet in this chapter, but YOLO. These boys deserve some softness to go with their teasing and jokes.


	3. everything burned in blue

Jason was lying on his stomach with his eyes closed as he dozed, the contentment that followed a good orgasm and the warmth of the sun against his back luring him towards sleep, when he felt Kyle shifting next to him.

"The dye is starting to fade," Kyle observed. A moment later Jason felt Kyle's fingers brush against his forehead before Kyle ran them through the streak at the front. Jason hummed, keeping his eyes closed as he leaned into the touch. For the past two weeks Kyle's missions had taken part on planets close enough to Earth for him to spend more nights at home, but Jason knew it wouldn't be much longer before he didn't have this anymore. "Are you going to redo it?"

"Yes," Jason said. He'd noticed that the dye was starting to fade a few days ago and he'd already texted Camilla to see when she would be free to help him redo it. Having the dye in his hair made him feel so much better about so many things that he couldn't imagine letting it fade back to white.

"Green again?" Kyle asked.

Jason let out a puff of laughter. He opened one eye so he would peer at Kyle as he said, "You'd like that wouldn't you?"

Kyle was lying on his side, propped up on his elbow as he played with Jason's hair. His chest was bare, leaving an expanse of dark skin for Jason's eyes to roam over. He twisted his finger so that Jason's dull green hair wrapped around it. "I would."

"Maybe next time you're in town," Jason said.

Kyle hummed a bit. Jason let his eyes close again. "Do you know what you're going to do then? Since you're not going green again?"

"Camilla suggested blue," Jason said.

"Blue is a nice choice for you," Kyle agreed. "It'll bring your eyes out."

"Because I really care about how much my hair makes my eyes pop," Jason said.

"I'm just saying," Kyle said. Jason felt Kyle moving and then lips brushing against his closed eyelids. "You have gorgeous eyes and choosing a that's going to to bring them out is a good choice."

Jason felt the warmth that always seemed to accompany a compliment from Kyle stir in his chest.

"You say that now," Jason told him, "but you're going to regret encouraging this when someone hotter than you tells me they love my eyes."

Kyle let out a puff of laughter. He hadn't moved very far after kissing Jason, so Jason felt it as Kyle's breath ghosted along his face. "You liar. You love me far too much to leave me just because someone told you your eyes are pretty."

It was absolutely true. Jason was in head-over-heels, fairy tale love with Kyle. At this point, there were very few deal breakers in their relationships. Jason was locked in for the long haul.

Jason wasn't going to tell Kyle that, though, so instead he said, "I would drop you in a heartbeat if Donna told me my eyes were pretty."

"That's fair," Kyle said. Jason let out a small laugh. "But also a non-issue because Donna loves me so she would never betray me like that."

"Donna loves me too," Jason argued.

"You are absolutely her favorite Robin," Kyle told him. "But she's channeled her love for each of us into a very firm belief that we're the best couple in our entire friendship, so she's not going to save you from this relationship anyway."

"Unfortunate." Jason opened his eyes again. Kyle was closer now then he had been before. He was watching Jason with a small smile on his lips and affection filling his eyes. The warm feeling in Jason's chest grew. "But I guess if Donna's not an option, then you're not a bad second choice."

Kyle's smile grew. He leaned in, pressing his lips against Jason's in a quick peck. "I love you too, Jaybird."

* * *

That weekend Jason and Kyle went to the beauty shop together to look for a shade of blue that Jason's hair could be dyed.

Usually Camilla would have tagged along since she was the one with the actual experience in dyeing hair, but she had an essay due the following Monday. She was putting the final touches on it while Jason and Kyle picked a shade then meeting them at the apartment. They'd agreed that as long as Camilla brought over a copy that she didn't mind possibly dotting with hairdye, then Jason would proof read it for her while they were waiting for the dye to settle.

Since it was only the two of them, Roy having gone to Star City to see Dinah and Kori tagging along so Kyle and Jason could have some time alone before Kyle was gone again, Jason had been expecting it to be a relatively quick trip. There wouldn't be any four person arguments about whether Jason should go light or dark blue.

What Jason hadn't accounted for, however, was the fact that Kyle was an artist and a dramatic one at that. He had _opinions_  when it came to colors and seemed determined to turn the entire thing into a much bigger production than it had been previously.

Thus far Jason had been sticking to solid colors, but now that Kyle was involved he wanted to turn Jason's hair into as much of an artistic venture as anything else. He picked up [a cool dark blue along with an icy arctic blue](https://i1.wp.com/therighthairstyles.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/1-cobalt-blue-and-aquamarine-hair-color.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1) and insisted that they had to work both of them in. Jason had been skeptical since they weren't dyeing that much of his hair so it seemed like a waste to buy two bottles, but Kyle was insistent and when he texted her Camilla told him that she could do it, so he gave in.

Kyle's smile and the excited "whoop" he let out when Jason agreed were enough to make the few extra dollars worth it.

He spent a fair amount of time that afternoon listening to Kyle and Camilla debate the best way to put the colors in so that the colors wouldn't mix and end up as a different color then what they'd been intending. By the time Camilla opened the boxes of dye, the three of them had already spent an entire hour crowding around the bathroom sink.

Despite how much longer it took to get the dye job done, Jason found that he actually really liked the end result. Camilla had put the colors in in a way that turned that strip of Jason's hair into a twisting mix of dark and light blue that Jason found kind of beautiful. She hadn't had that much to work with, but she'd made the space that she had count. On top of the beauty that came with the way Camilla had done it, the colors that Kyle had picked out brought Jason's eyes out in exactly the way Kyle had said the blue dye would.

Despite his skepticism when Kyle had suggested it, Jason was happy that he'd agreed to try it out. 

* * *

"Alfie," Jason greeted, a smile spreading across his lips as the manor's door swung open. "Hey."

"Master Jason," Alfred said. There was a small smile on his lips as well and his voice was filled with affection. "It is a pleasure to see you again."

"It's nice to see you too," Jason said. He stepped forward to wrap his arms around Alfred in a tight hug, a gesture the elderly man gladly returned. Physical affection from Alfred was rare, but the two of them weren't meeting in a capacity that Alfred thought required his usual levels of professionalism. Plus, Jason knew that while Alfred would never actually say it, he was Alfred's favorite charge. Bruce was probably a close second by virtue of sheer exposure, but the other kids definitely didn't come anywhere near him. When he pulled back from the hug, he added, "I'm sorry I kept skipping out on you."

Usually Jason and Alfred had lunch together at least once a month. They did lunch since typically in meant that all of the kids were at school and Bruce would be at work, so Jason and Alfred could spend time together without any interruptions. But the Joker had gotten out before their plans last month which had led to Jason fighting with Bruce, that had ultimately been the catalyst for Jason deciding to dye his hair the first time, and wanting to be nowhere near the manor. Then Kyle had come back and Jason had canceled because it was a lot easier to schedule lunch with Alfred than it was to schedule time with Kyle. So they hadn't met at all the previous month and Jason was genuinely sorry about that.

"It's quite alright," Alfred said. "I am just happy to see you now."

Jason felt a pang of guilt. Bruce was a prick, but he shouldn't have that stop him from coming over for their original date. Bruce had never shown up when Jason was over before and paranoia had been his only reason for thinking he would that week.

Alfred stepped aside, giving Jason to step into the manor. "Now come in, my boy. Since it's been so long, I made one of your favorites for lunch."

"Yeah?" Jason stepped into the house. He took his shoes off before following Alfred through the manor and towards the dining room. Having his shoes off would mean a slower getaway if someone did come home early, but it also meant that he didn't risk creating more work for Alfred by tracking mud through the manor. "What is it?"

"The chicken sandwiches that you like so much."

"Oh man," Jason said. He practically taste the sandwich already, the crispness of the chicken and the savory mustard that Alfred always put on his. "Those _are_  a favorite."

"I'm well aware," Alfred said. He wasn't looking at Jason as he added, "Perhaps while we're eating, you may take a minute or two to explain your hair to me?"

Jason hadn't exactly forgotten that he hadn't seen since he'd started dying his hair, but it hadn't been at the forefront of his mind either. Alfred wouldn't really understand it without Jason explaining, but his instinct wouldn't be to judge Jason either. Alfred would want an explanation, but he wouldn't _demand_  it. And most of all, Alfred wouldn't scold him for making one of his distinguishing features even more distinct.

Baring that in mind, Jason felt comfortable admitting, "It helps."

"Does it?" Alfred asked. His tone was questioning, but it wasn't probing. He was curious, but he wasn't going to push Jason to share anymore was comfortable with.

"More then I thought it would when I did it," Jason said. He considered for a moment before saying, "I let Kyle draw me for the first time yesterday. Like...He's done it before, but this time he asked and I actually said yes."

They had reached the dining room now, but before Jason could step inside the room a hand rested on Jason's arm. He looked over at Alfred.

"That is a big step for you," Alfred said. His hand squeezed Jason's bicep. "I am incredibly proud of you for being able to make it, Master Jason." There was a small pause before Alfred added, "Even if it means your hair begins to resemble a peacocks feathers."

If Jason's ensuing laugh was a little wet, if there were tears in the corners of his eyes, then neither of them mentioned it. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello everyone! Hopefully you enjoy this chapter! The rest of the story is going to include various members of the batfam learning about Jason's hair and Alfred seemed like a great person to start with. Unfortunately, I'm not including Duke because I haven't read a single comic with Duke in it though I'm trying to fix that!
> 
> 2) chapter title from Pablo Neruda's 100 Love Sonnets
> 
> 3) Kyle is from LA. He's latino. Fight me.


	4. looking dignified wearing a bed sheet and a purple cape.

"I knew this dye wasn't high quality enough for your hair," Camilla said, clicking her tongue a little bit as she ran her fingers through the streak in the front of Jason's hair. "The lighter color is pretty much gone already."

Camilla had had a fight with Tony, who apparently wasn't happy that she was still spending time with 'that asshole from the mall.' Jason had a pretty good handle on his nightmares nowadays, but they always seemed to get worse in the days immediately following Kyle's departures. So they'd both been having a bad day, they had settled on the couch so they could cuddle and make each other feel a little better.

Currently they were settled so that Camilla was sprawled out with her back against the arm of the couch while Jason lied on his stomach, snug between her legs with his face pressed against her thigh and his arms wrapped loosely around her waist. It probably wouldn't help things if Tony knew that that Camilla had run to Jason after their fight, but honestly Jason thought Tony was a prick since the first time he'd met Camilla and he was just waiting for her to realize that he wasn't worth it.

"It's fine," Jason said. He hadn't slept for shit the last few days, so the gentle touch of Camilla's hands in his hair and the general comfort that came with being around one of his friends was making it easy for him to drift off.

"It's not," Camilla objected. "You hate when it gets close to white again."

A warm feeling spread through Jason's chest, affection and love for this girl who he already considered one of his closest friends. Because Camilla had no idea what had happened to him, but she knew enough for there to be an understanding that whatever it was that plagued Jason wasn't something he wanted to talk about. She accepted that, embraced it even, and didn't ask questions about any of the various things that were so obviously off about him. There were so many things about him that were a mystery to her, but she'd decided with the pieces that she had that he was worthy of her friendship and that the secrets were acceptable as long as they were in each others lives.

"Why don't we dye it again today?" Camilla suggested. "We'll keep the darker blue for now, but find another color to add in that'll look nice with it."

Jason didn't have plans outside of lying here with her, so he said, "Like what?"

She hummed for a moment before suggesting, "[Purple](https://media.musely.com/u/18d4059e-6e51-4d44-bbfd-1fa38f4f41b9.jpg) maybe? I can think of a few shades that will look good with the blue as long as we touch it up a bit."

"Purple huh?" It probably the fact that Camilla didn't push him for information that had him saying, "My sisters would like that."

"You have sisters?" Camilla asked. Her voice was casually interested in that way which gave Jason room to provide more information if he wanted but which gave him room to back out if he wanted.

"Three," Jason told her. "Two of them are younger than me and one of them is older."

"Are you close?"

Jason thought about Stephanie and Cassandra. He thought about how he'd enjoyed the few times that he'd worked with them because they had no preconceptions about him, because they hadn't been part of the family before Jason's death like Dick nor had they spent their childhood looking up to him the way Tim had. He thought about how that hadn't stopped him from keeping their distance from them because it was terrifying to think about opening up to these girls in a way that involved more than just quips and ass kicking.

"Not to the younger two," Jason said.

"And your older sister?"

Jason thought about Barbara. He thought about how when Dick had been busy being angry at Bruce and mostly ignoring Jason, Barbara had been there. She hadn't been going out as Batgirl nearly as often in those days, but she'd still been there for him when he was in the costume. She'd been there for him as much as out of the costume has she had been out of it, no doubt knowing that Jason was lacking in companions anywhere near his age.

"She was one of my favorite people when I was younger. I definitely preferred her over my brother," Jason told Camilla. "We aren't so close anymore."

Camilla must have sensed that Jason wouldn't want to go into why they weren't close anymore, because she said, "You have a brother too?"

"I've got three of those too," Jason told him. "One older and two younger again."

"Big family," she remarked.

Jason thought about all the other people that the Bats considered family. He thought about Selina who was practically married to Bruce without the commitment and the way that that carried into her relationship with each of Bruce's children. He thought about Commissioner Gordon who kept their secret and made sure each of them were protected before they left a crime scene. He thought about the strange relationship they had with some of the rogues - about the care that Bruce had for Harley who was a victim of the Joker as much as any of the bats and how Jason himself had this strange antagonistic friendship with Black Mask that reminded him of the mean older cousins some of the kids in his neighborhood had had. He thought about everyone else that was apart of their family without being tied to them so directly.

A laugh bubbled out of his throat. "You have no idea."

* * *

Jason didn't know whether it was because he'd seen Alfred so recently or because Camilla was pushing him to talk about it the way Roy and Kori sometimes did, but he found himself opening up to her about the family as they went through the motions of dyeing his hair.

When Camilla was driving them to the beauty shop to pick up the hair-dye, Jason found himself telling her how he'd met Bruce. It was edited to a pretty high extent, but he explained that he'd stumbled upon a pretty expensive car in the neighborhood and tried to steal the tires off it. The owner of the car had caught him when he was on the fourth tire and insisted that he put them back. When she asked how _that_  had ended up with him getting adopted, Jason had only shrugged because it'd been over a decade and he still didn't know how that had happened. Bruce was a sore spot now, but he hadn't been in the beginning and telling someone about the good memories felt nice.

As they were looking at the rows of purple hair-dye, trying to pick which shade would look best, Jason found himself telling her about Barbara. He told Camilla how Barbara did her best to spend time with him, but she was older than him and in college at the time so she couldn't always be around. They saw each other for at least an hour every week since Bruce was paying her to tutor him in science and math, which he was struggling to catch up to other kids his age in, but sometimes those were the only times when they saw each other. He told her how if it had been too long since they'd gotten to spend time together, Jason would go to the library where she worked after school. On those days, Jason would set up in the lounge area near the counter and read whatever he was most interested in. Barbara would talk to him when there weren't customers needing her help, talking to him about whatever book he had chosen or recommending books to him when he hadn't picked one yet.

When they moved on to actually dyeing his hair, Jason found himself talking about Tim. He'd known Dick longer, but nowadays it was Tim who he was closest to. He told Camilla how their relationship had started out so rough that it shouldn't have been possible for them to recover from it, but how Tim was so absurdly kind and forgiving that somehow he'd managed to perhaps not forget what Jason had done to him but to at least forgive him for it. He told her, in vague terms, how they both had problems with their oldest brother and how somehow they'd ended up drawn to each other despite everything. He told her how they helped each other with their work and how Tim always seemed to rope Jason into staying to have a meal with him. He complained about how Tim never seemed to eat anything other than take-out and told her how, as long as he had the time, he tried to make a meal for him whenever they were together.

When they were finished and Jason found himself unable to talk about his family anymore, feeling a little overwhelmed after sharing everything he had, Camilla smiled and told him that he was lucky to have such an amazing family.

Jason would never say it to any of them, but he knew how true that she said was.

He just didn't think they were so lucky to have ended up with him. 

* * *

"It's going to take a while, Jason," Barbara told him. "You might as well take the hood off and get comfortable."

Jason let out a soft sigh, leaning back against the couch he was sat on and letting his head tip backwards.

He'd brought Barbara a bunch of information from the Outlaws last case because Roy had said it would be a lot quicker to have her look through it. Jason had known, on some level, that if it was bad enough that Roy was passing it off instead of keeping it in team than the security on the information had to be pretty intense.

Still, he hadn't been fully prepared to spend an extended amount of time in the Clock Tower. He worked with Barbara fairly often nowadays, less than he worked with Tim but a significantly higher amount than any of the other bats, but he rarely just sat around while waiting for her to finish something.

"Alright," Jason said after a moment. He undid the latches and pulled the helmet off. He took a deep breath, taking a second to enjoy the fact that he was breathing fresh air again. They'd only tracked the information down earlier that night, but the case the Outlaws was working on involved children and they were eager to get things sorted out so it had been a rather long night and it'd been longer than usual since he'd taken the helmet off. Reaching up to run his fingers through his hair and move his sweaty, floppy, bangs out of his face he asked, "Do you mind if I have a smoke?"

"At the window," Barbara said, not bothering to look at him as she lifted a hand to point him towards the larger window in the room.

"Thanks."

Jason heaved himself off the couch. He reached down, rummaging through his pockets for his carton of cigarettes. He had his head bent down, so he didn't notice Barbara looking over at him until she said, "Purple and blue, huh?"

"What?" Jason realized what she meant a second later when he looked up and the dyed hair flopped across his vision. He wasn't surprised by the fact that she knew even though they hadn't talked recently. He knew that Barbara kept an eye on them and he didn't kick up a fit because Barbara kept tabs on all of them. It was her way of making sure they were all safe and protected, regardless of how much they kept in contact with her. Instead, he said, "A friend told me that purple would look nice."

"It does," Barbara agreed.

Jason wasn't sure why, but he told her, "I thought of you when she suggested it." When she looked confused he added, "It made me remember your batgirl costume. I'm sure most people probably associate purple with Spoiler now, but back then it was just us and B around here. Wing when he wasn't with the Titans or in Bludhaven, but..." He trailed off, shrugging a little bit.

"Oh," she said. She laughed a little as if remembering the costume. "It was very purple wasn't it?"

"Yeah, but I wouldn't worry about it," Jason told her. "I don't think any of us are ever going to pick a costume that looks as bad as Discowing."

Barbara let out a loud bark of laughter at the reminder. "Oh my god. That was _terrible_  wasn't it? I have no idea what Dick was thinking."

"I don't think _Dick_  knows what Dick was thinking."

"Probably not," Barbara agreed.

Jason couldn't help the smile that took over his face.

Laughing with Barbara, with his older sister, felt nice. Especially when they were laughing at Dick's expense. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hi everyone! You've all been so lovely and seem to be enjoying the story so much so far! I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well!
> 
> 2) I did this one a little differently! It seemed weird to me to have Alfred show up immediately after the last chapter after establishing that Jason doesn't see him that often because his relationship with the family is still strained. So I thought I'd go with Jason talking a bit about Alfred to Camilla. 
> 
> 3) This isn't really set in or out of new-52, but I really like the relationship between Jason and Tim in new-52 so I went with that sort of dynamic. 
> 
> 4) Originally I was going to save purple for Stephanie, but I ended up finding the pic in this chapter and thought it would go really nice with Barbara as the original batgirl as well. 
> 
> 5) Personally, I flip between Bruce being an uncle to Barbara and Bruce being a second father to Barbara. I think both of their merits and that regardless, she's always been a part of this family even separated from her relationship with Dick.


	5. yellow is the color you get when you're real and brutally honest.

"Honey, I'm home!"

Jason was focused on the dough his hand, so he didn't bother turning around at Kyle's call.

Noticing that he hadn't heard the door open, Jason said, "You came in the window again didn't you?"

"What's the point of being able to fly if I'm not allowed to come in through windows?"

"Kori can fly and she comes in the door like everyone else."

"Kori is a princess. I shouldn't be expected to show the same amount of grace as her." Kyle's voice had been drawing closer as the conversation went on. Jason felt familiar arms wrap around his waist and a broad chest press against his back. When he felt Kyle rest his chin on his shoulder, Jason looked over at him. When their eyes met, a wide grin spread over Kyle's lips. "Hello there."

"Hi," Jason greeted.

He pressed a small peck against Kyle's lips. As soon as Jason pulled away, Kyle leaned in for a second.

When Kyle pulled back again, he turned so he could look down at Jason's hands. "You're making mini-pizzas?"

"You got back just in time for game night," Jason said.

Game night had been a tradition amongst the Outlaws even before they'd all moved to Gotham together. The tradition had started back when they realized that Kori's time in the Titans hadn't introduced her to a very wide variety of board games since they tended to stick to the same two or three and video games. It was one night every week when they all sat down together and let some of the stress of their lives roll off of them. They usually did it every weekend, but there had been a few weekdays when something popped up in one of their lives that drove them to pull out Candyland or Chutes and Ladders early.

For a while it had just been Jason, Kori, and Roy. Now it included Kyle whenever he was on earth and Camilla when she wasn't spending her weekend finishing things up for the next school week.

There was a soft hum from Kyle. He must have been figuring out how many weeks he'd been gone because he asked, "It's my turn to pick, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but I didn't know you were coming back," Jason said. "So we gave your turn to Barbara."

"Barbara's coming?"

"Yeah."

"That's new," Kyle said.

Jason had only invited one member of the family to the apartment before and that was Tim. However, Jason's relationship with Tim was different than his relationship with any of the other members of the family. Jason and Tim were both isolated from the family, though to different degrees and for different reasons. Despite everything in their past, they'd found common ground within themselves and within their feelings towards the family as a whole. It had taken a long time, but now Tim was the only member of the family that Jason referred to as family frequently and without reserve.

So Jason inviting Barbara was something significant and Kyle was noticeably curious about it.

However, Jason knew that, despite his curiosity, Kyle wouldn't push.

Kyle hadn't had his ring yet when Jason died so he didn't know how Jason interacted with them before that and as a lantern he didn't spend much time around members of the family. So Kyle never pushed Jason to interact with his family, simply accepted that Jason knew his family better than Kyle did and knew what was best for himself when it came to speaking to them.

"Yeah," Jason said. He set the dough he had been working on onto the plate with the little circles of dough that he'd already finished. Jason cooked pretty much every game night since Roy had a tendency to get out of control and asking Kori to cook was begging for food poisoning. "I spent some time with her the other day and it was fun so..."

"So you invited her to game night so you could spend more time with her?"

Jason nodded. "Yeah."

"Alright," Kyle said, accepting that Jason's explanation easily. He drummed his fingers against Jason's stomach. "Do you have any idea what she wants to play?"

"She hasn't told me anything," Jason said. After a moment, he added, "But she liked Risk a lot when we were younger. She tutored me for a while because my math and science knowledge wasn't at grade level. Sometimes Bruce or Alfred would ask her to watch me for a little while after our sessions because they had something to do. The first time she watched me we ended up starting a game for some reason, I think it was because she asked if I wanted to play a board game and I told her I hadn't really played any because I had been on the streets, and after that it kind of became a thing we did every time she watched me."

"I never liked Risk that much," Kyle told him.

"I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it that much either," Jason said. He reached forward to grab more dough. There were a fair amount already done, but Kyle, Jason, and Kori all ate more than most people their age which meant they needed a pretty large amount of food anytime all of them were eating together. "She loved it though. Which isn't really surprising given that she was absolutely kicking my ass." Letting out a small laugh, he joked, "It's probably a good thing I died because losing as badly as I was would have been humiliating."

Kyle didn't chide Jason for joking about his death, understood that sometimes joking about it helped Jason deal with the pain of it. Instead, he squeezed Jason a little tighter and said, "Well if she brings Risk tonight, let's not jump straight to death in order to escape a humiliating defeat alright?"

"Of course not," Jason dismissed. "I mean, it's not going to be nearly as humiliating as before since I'm not going to be the only one she'll be crushing."

* * *

Though Jason had been the one to invite Barbara to game night, he found his gut churning with worry in the hours leading up to the time she was supposed to be arriving.

Luckily, Jason had a family outside of Bats and they were more than happy to help soothe his nerds.

Kyle stayed in the kitchen with him. After a few kisses, Kyle withdrew from Jason's personal space and lifted himself up so he could sit on the counter next to the stove. He told Jason stories about his time in space, making Jason laugh despite the tension his body, and insisted on Jason putting ham and pineapple on a few of the pizzas, starting up an argument about fruit on pizza that kept Jason from thinking about Barbara.

Kori and Roy had been out of the apartment when Kyle arrived, picking a few things up for that night, but it wasn't long before they came into the apartment. They came in with the kind of frenzy that was typical of the Outlaws - Kori sweeping into the kitchen for hugs and kisses while Roy walked in already in the middle of a story about some stupid kids trying to buy beer at the liquor store they'd gone to. His friends had always been good at reading his mood and they must have picked up on his nerves because they settled into their usual 'make Jason feel better' behaviors.

Kori hovered in a way that would have been overbearing and irritating if it was anyone else, but somehow managed to be endearing when it was her doing it. She stood to his side, pressed close enough that their thighs touched and their elbows bumped when Jason moved, and asked questions about what he was doing. Knowing that she had good memories of pizza from her time as a Titan, Jason was happy to explain to her what he was doing and let her help out with the finishing touches. And when Kyle brought the pineapple debate back up, he was all too glad to tell her why it was that people who ate pineapple on pizza were such an affront to humanity.

Roy stood on Kori's other side, something that he tended to do even when Kyle wasn't occupying the space on Jason's other side, with one of the beers that he and Kori had bought while they were out. He let Kori take the more obvious attempt at soothing Jason, choosing instead to ramble in that passionate way that most he and Jason tended to do. Roy's rants were a bit more technical than Jason's, but Jason had always found the sound of Roy's voice soothing. It reminded Jason that Roy was there and that he cared about Jason. When the pineapple debate started again, Roy threw himself into pineapple's defensive just as passionately as Jason threw himself into the offense.

None of them realized how long they'd been arguing about it until Camilla walked into the kitchen, saying that she'd tried knocking first but came in anyway when she didn't get a response. Instead of greeting her, Kyle had pointed at her with the nose of his own beer bottle and demanded to know her opinions on pineapple on pizza. Her easy acceptance that they'd been having such a heated debate about pineapple on pizza that they hadn't noticed her entry reminded Jason why it was that she fell into their group so easily. The years had broken everyone a little bit, but Camilla accepted them as they were and didn't try to pry into the things they clearly didn't want to talk about.

It was silly and stupid and hectic, but by the time Barbara showed up with Risk Jason had completely forgotten to be nervous about her being there.

Some of the nerves returned when he saw her, but he had invited her because he felt like it was time to try with her. Because he felt like maybe the two of them could fix things between them and like game night was a good place to start trying to do that.

And it turned out that his thought had been at least a little bit true. Things between him and Barbara would never be the same, not just because of everything that had happened but because they'd both grown up and that turned people into someone different even without their complications of their lives, but they could get back to a good place.

All they needed to get started were mini-pizzas, beer, four people with a grudge against Dick Grayson and two that were willing to pretend they had a grudge against him, and a board game that let them all stab each other in the back without anyone actually getting hurt.

* * *

"Todd!" The shout was accompanied by the sound of the door slamming open.

Game night had gotten a little out of control the night before. Usually they stuck to beer since it didn't do much for most of them. They'd kept to that while Camilla was over since she was underage and shouldn't have had to deal with their stupidity, but at some point after she'd left for home the rest of them had broken out the harder stuff.

Barbara had taken a cab home eventually, even drunk off their asses they all recognized a line they didn't want to cross, but the apartment's occupants had ended up sprawled out in the living room.

So when their guest burst into the apartment, shouting and aggressive, there were four of them there to react.

They all jerked awake, instinctively arming themselves against the intruder. Kyle's ring and Kori's hands were both bright, glowing green. Jason had reached for one of the guns shoved into the couch. In absence of his bow, Roy had reached for one of the other guns.

Jason already had a headache, but when he saw who it was standing at the apartment door it got a little worse. He lowered the gun in his hand, pointing it away from the boy in the doorway. "Damian. What the hell are you doing here?"

"Your hair is a disaster and an affront to art," Damian said. He was standing in front of the apartment's door with his arms crossed over his chest. "We have to fix it."

"What?" Jason squinted at Damian, trying to make sense of what he was saying. He could hear Roy groaning and he felt it as Kyle sighed and laid back down next to him. As Jason woke up a little more, he realized there was a plastic bag of some kind hanging off Damian's arm. He stared at the bag for a moment before saying, "Is that hair-dye?"

"Yes," Damian said. "Were you not listening to what I _just_  said?"

"Excuse me if my first reaction to a hostile party entering my apartment isn't to listen to what their saying," Jason said. He wondered, not for the first time, how it was that Alfred put up with this little brat. Talia he understood, because he knew first hand just how much Talia would let a child of hers get away with. But Alfred would have washed their mouths out with soap rather than let one of his charges get away with this kind of attitude. Deciding that it wouldn't do very much to tell Damian how much of a brat he was, Jason asked, "How did you even find out I was dyeing my hair?"

"Gordon sent me a picture last night."

Jason was confused for a moment as to why Barbara would have been sending Damian any photos the night before. Then he remembered that at some point they'd taken a photo to send to Dick, because Barbara might have been getting over her grudge but the rest of them were still quite angry at him. They'd been pretty drunk at that point, so it wasn't that much of a stretch to think Barbara might have sent the message to the wrong D contact.

There were very few photos of Jason between the ages of fifteen and twenty-two. Talia had one of the two of them from shortly before Jason left for his training, so he was around sixteen or seventeen, one of the Outlaws together last year, and Kyle had one or two that he'd dragged Jason into letting him take. But he'd taken twice that just since he started dyeing his hair. 

"And you...decided to buy hair-dye and barge into my apartment?"

"It needs to be corrected," Damian insisted.

Jason closed his eyes, reaching up to run his hand through his hair and letting out a sigh.

The purple coloring had started to fade, but he didn't think it had gotten as far as being an 'affront to art' yet.

Still hair-dye was expensive and he wasn't really going to turn down the ability to spend Bruce's money on it instead of his own.

"What color did you get?" Jason asked.

"[Green and yellow](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/09/2d/43/092d4373303626fe283a1dbff55b4540.jpg)," Damian said.

Kyle made a pleased sound which Jason ignored, almost certain that the shade of green that Damian had picked wasn't Lantern green. Instead he sighed and said, "The girl who usually does my hair is going to need a while to get here and I need some coffee."

When he went to stand up, Kyle reached out and tugged on the back of his shirt. He had his face pressed against the couch, where Kyle and Jason had ended up, and he didn't bother turning his face out of the couch when he requested, "Eggs?"

Jason looked at him for a minute, debating whether or not he loved Kyle enough to cook him eggs when he was hungover. Then he sighed, "Fine. Roy, Kori, you want some?"

"Yes, Jay," Kori said while Roy settled for just giving Jason a thumbs up.

Jason glanced over at Damian. It was early and if the kid had gone to the get hair-dye before coming over than he'd probably been out of the manor for a while. "Did you eat before you came over here?"

"No," Damian said. "But I do not require-"

He was cut off by the sound of his stomach growling. The kid flushed a bright, angry red.

Jason chose to ignore it, instead making his way towards the kitchen. "Alright, eggs for everyone it is then."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hi everyone! I hope you've enjoyed this chapter!
> 
> 2) Although there's been a lot of name dropping as far as Tim and his relationship with Jason goes, I wanted to Damian first because a big part of the conception of this fic was the idea that art is something Damian is passionate about and when Jason turns his body into art of a sort it opens a door to bond with Damian. Tim is next though!
> 
> 3) Was that a hint of a Jason&Talia mother&son relationship?? Hell yeah it absolutely fucking was. 
> 
> 4) Jason is very chill in the final section despite a bat he's not on friendly terms with just barging into his apartment, but I think he's a lot more likely to react that way with a child than he would be if it was Bruce or Dick. He's hungover and just kinda out of it and his instinctive reaction to a child, even Damian, isn't necessarily going to be to start a fight.


	6. red is a color of love

"You're really going to let him do this?" Kyle questioned.

"Who else would he let do it?" Damian sneered, "You?"

Jason resisted the urge to sigh. He wondered if it was too late to call Camilla and have her come over to help instead.

"I wasn't going to suggest I do it," Kyle said. "But I was thinking that it might be better to trust someone who's at least hit puberty."

"I'm _not_ a child," Damian hissed.

"You're ten," Kyle deadpanned.

Jason had closed his eyes out of exhaustion, but now he opened them and peered at the two standing in front of him. Damian was glaring at Kyle with his arms folded in front of his chest. He was puffed up in a way that reminded Jason of a disgruntled cat. Kyle was staring right back, though he looked more amused than anything else.

"Jesus," Jason said, letting out an exasperated sigh. "The youngest sibling really is destined to be a brat aren't they? T never would have let me get away with that kind of attitude."

"You are not-" Damian stopped himself mid-sentence. Jason assumed that Damian was about to deny any relation between the two of them, only to realize that Jason hadn't been talking about Bruce. Angry confusion settled on Damian's face. "You know Mother?"

"Who do you think put me in the Lazarus pit?" Jason asked. When Damian started blankly at him, Jason said, "Really, Damian? I didn't stumble all the way from Gotham to the middle east and just happen to trip into it."

"Father's file on you doesn't say that Mother was the one to put you in the pit."

"B doesn't know that T put me in the pit," Jason answered.

When Jason was a kid, he'd thought that Bruce knew everything, that even what Bruce didn't know he could figure out. It hadn't stopped Jason from causing trouble, but it'd limited him to things that he knew Bruce wouldn't be too angry at him. Then Garzonasa had happened and Jason learned that Bruce didn't know everything, he just made assumptions and refused to budge so everyone assumed what he said was true. He was sure Bruce had made a few assumptions about how Jason had come back to life, but Jason had already learned that Bruce wasn't going to listen to him when it came to changing those assumptions. Not even if Jason was the one that had actually been there.

The confusion on Damian's face deepened. "You call mother and father the same way."

"So do you," Jason pointed out. Damian's face contorted, anger and disbelief and confusion all at war. Jason knew that Damian was struggling with the implication that Jason called Talia and Bruce similarly because they held the same place in his heart. It probably didn't help that Damian's only experience with siblings were those who claimed him via their connection with Bruce. Jason, however, was adding Talia to the mix. "Look, Damian, I don't really care if you believe me or not. I know what my relationship with T is. It doesn't matter to me what anyone other than Talia thinks about it."

"Personally," Kyle piped in, "I think it's sweet the way she swears at you for hours in Arabic whenever you've been particularly stupid."

The memory made Jason cringe. The last time he'd been in the hospital Talia had called when his room was filled, Kyle on one side while Roy and Kori were on his other. Jason hadn't wanted to answer with all of them around, but he knew that ignoring her phone call would just end up with him in even more trouble. So he'd answered the phone and spent the next two hours listening to Talia rage at him for putting himself in such grave danger while Kyle and Roy laughed their asses off on either side of him.

"You-" Jason's eyebrows raised a little bit when he heard Damian's voice break at the end of the word. Damian flushed, embarrassment adding itself to the mess of emotions on his face, before clearing his throat. "You talk to Mother?"

"Yeah."

"Have you...Have you seen her?"

Oh, Jason thought.

Damian loved both of his parents, but there was no way he could be with both of them. Being raised by Talia when he was younger meant not getting to know his father. Spending time with Bruce and Dick and Alfred meant that Talia wouldn't be in his life. He was only ten years old and he was being forced to choose between his parents.

Damian was a spoiled brat, but he didn't deserve the hand he'd been dealt and Jason's heart-broke for the kid.

"Not recently," Jason told him. He thought about the last time he'd seen Talia. She'd caught him when he, Kori, and Roy were on a mission in the Greek Isles. They'd only just finished up so they were all exhausted, so Kori and Roy went back to the ship for sleep while Talia took Jason to dinner. She'd scolded him for spending so much time in America, there was a heavy superhero presence no matter where in America he was and that made it hard for her to visit when so many of them were connected to Bruce. Then she'd started asking questions that made it clear she'd been watching him the entire time. Jason had been expecting that, so he'd just went along with it. Bruce watching him was a breach of trust because Bruce saw him as a problem or a threat. Talia watched him because there was no option for open communication between them, not when Talia had to be so careful of her father. That had been about half a year ago. He thought about how long it had probably been since Damian had seen her. "But I've probably seen her more recently than you have."

There was a quiet moment before Jason said, "I'll tell you about her while you put the dye in for me."

"I don't need you to-" Damian started, obviously taking Jason's offer as something only a child would need.

"I know you don't," Jason cut in. "But I miss her. It'll help to talk about her."

* * *

Jason spent the next two hours talking about Talia as Damian put the green and yellow dyes in his hair.

He started out talking about things that he knew were a personal experience, things that he knew Damian wouldn't have anything to say about. He knew that Damian wouldn't tell Dick and Bruce anything he said, knew that Damian knew better than to bring his mother up with them, so he opened up.

He told Damian about the days before his dip in the Lazarus pit. He remembered most of those days in impressions, but those impressions were ones that had left there mark on Jason.

He told Damian about the days when he and Talia would go for walks together, how she'd loop Jason's arm through hers and walk him around the gardens in the compound she had Jason in. He told Damian how he'd enjoyed the way the walks felt, how it felt with the wind pushing through his hair and Talia's voice speaking in calm tones about what she'd been doing while she was away from this compound. Jason didn't remember any of the words, but he thought she had mentioned Damian a few times. He told Damian how now he realized that she must have been splitting her time between the two of them, between the compound that held a young child and the compound which held a broken teenager.

He told Damian how Talia would cut his hair in those days. He talked about the way she'd run her fingers through his mop of locks, clicking her tongue as she did. He told Damian how the first time Jason had heard him do it in the Robin costume, he'd practically been able to feel Talia's fingers in his hair. After receiving a pair of scissors from one of the women who lived in the compound, one of the woman who Talia could trust because there loyalty was to her instead of her father, she would lead Jason into the bathroom and have him sit down on a stool in front of the mirror. Sometimes she would make quiet comments while she did it, sometimes she would hum softly as she did it.

After a while Jason's stories coaxed Damian into opening up. After Jason mentioned, once again, how soothing he had found Talia's voice in those days, Damian mentioned how he'd found the smell of Talia's favorite perfume comforting when he was younger. When he mentioned it, Jason practically smell the mix of rose, cedar wood, and saffron.

From there it turned into more of a conversation.

They talked about how Talia was a terrible cook, but somehow she managed to make some of the most amazing desserts they'd ever tasted. Talia didn't often have time to spend a kitchen, but occasionally she had taken the time to make each of them something. Damian preferred basbousa while Jason could wax poetry about her baklava if given the opportunity. They talked about how Talia preferred western clothing and how much they both loved the rare occasions when she wore traditional clothing. Jason hadn't seen her in traditional clothing very often, they didn't share a faith so spending holidays together hadn't been important before or after his dip in the pit, but the times that he had had left an impression on him. Damian admitted that sometimes the bright colors of the Robin costume reminded him of the brightly colored clothing Talia wore when she was dressed traditionally. They talked about their individual travels with Talia. Damian complained about Talia's love for french food and Jason told Damian how truly terrible Talia's taste in beer was.

Jason had started the conversation for Damian's sake, but the more they talked the more Jason remembered how much he loved Talia. Maybe she hadn't been responsible for raising him from the grave, but it was Talia who had given him a real second life and sometimes it was hard to look past that action. It was hard not to blame her for how lost and out of balance he felt somedays.

At the end of the day, however, Jason loved her.

Jason might have found Sheila in Ethiopia, but it wasn't until after his death that he really found a mother.

* * *

"Hey, Red."

Jason was sitting in a booth at a small diner, scooping scrambled eggs onto a piece of toast. It was late, just after his patrol, but his stomach had growled when he passed the place on the way home. Barring any emergencies Kyle wasn't leaving for another two or three weeks and the Outlaws weren't working on a case, so Jason wasn't really in any hurry to get back to the apartment.

He'd been sitting alone, but now Jason looked up to find that Tim had slid into the other side of the booth.

Mindful that they were both still in costume, though Jason had the hood set on the seat next to him and was relying on the domino to mask his face, Jason grinned at him. "Hey there, Red. When did you get back in Gotham?"

The two of them shouldn't have been able to become as close as they were, not with everything Jason had done to Tim back when he was Robin, but they'd grown close over the last few years. At first it'd been because neither of them wanted to work with the others bats, Jason couldn't stand any of them and Dick taking Robin away from Tim had shattered that relationship irrevocably, but gradually they started to genuinely enjoy each other's company. As different as they were, they both had sharp tongues and a love of nerdy novels. That had been enough for them to start bonding. From there it was history.

Dick and Damian had each other, but so did Jason and Tim.

"Last night," Tim told him. "I would've dropped by the apartment, but I mostly just slept and got ready for tonight."

"It's cool," Jason said. "I'm just glad you actually slept for once."

"Why does everyone say that?" Tim said. He leaned forward, snagging a piece of bacon off Jason's plate. Jason sent him a sharp look, but didn't bother slapping Tim for it. "I sleep a perfectly healthy amount for a person my age."

"You are talking out of your ass right now," Jason told him.

"I'm not," Tim said, a hint of a whine creeping into his voice. He took a bite of the bacon strip he'd stolen before saying, "So you're looking a little more red these days."

Jason hummed a bit. "Yeah."

It'd hadn't been too long since Damian had dyed his hair, but Damian had picked some light shades and he hadn't exactly known what types of hair-dye were best. The color had faded fairly quickly because of that.

Jason had wanted a little break from the array of multiple colors, however, so when he and Camilla had met up to pick a new color they'd gone simplier than they had been. They'd gone for coloring the streak one solid color. Jason had picked out a [bright shade of red.](http://modern-hairstyles.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/two-tone-undercut-for-men-2016.jpg)It was a little on the nose, but it'd been enough to make Roy and Kyle laugh when they saw what color Jason had chosen.

"It's nice," Tim said.

"You think?"

"Yeah. Maybe I'll go ahead and dye mine too," Tim said, lips pulling up a small, amused smile. Jason imagined Tim walking into a meeting for Wayne Enterprises with his hair bright, popping red. He couldn't help the laugh that burst out of his mouth. Tim's smile widened. "I bet I could get Stephanie to do it too."

This was part of why it was so easy for Jason to talk to Tim, why it was so easy for Jason to open up with Tim. Tim was second only to Bruce when it came to his investigative abilities, but Tim made his theories without pushing them onto other people. Jason knew that Tim had probably already considered a hundred different reasons for Jason dyeing his hair, but instead of pushing one of them onto Jason or poking at him to figure out which was correct Tim was content to talk and joke about other things. If Jason chose to tell Tim which of his theories were right than Tim would be happy to listen and amend his thoughts, but until then Tim was happy not to push.

"No, no, no," Jason said, shaking his head. "She's not part of team double red. She'd have to go purple."

Jason was tired from a long night of patrol, but they spent a while in that diner, eventually moving the conversation away from hairdye and towards what each of them had been up to while Tim was out of Gotham. Tim was Jason's brother in all of the ways that mattered and Jason was always happy to spend some time with him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello everyone! Hopefully you're still enjoying this story and hopefully you enjoyed this specific chapter :)
> 
> 2) I don't think there's any point in canon which specifically addresses Bruce knowing /how/ Jason came back other than vague details?? I used that lack of detail to build on Damian and Jason's relationship. Also DC has done Talia Al Ghul dirty and we are fixing that. 
> 
> 3) This was supposed to be about Damian but it became largely about Talia. Oops?


	7. make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver and the other gold.

Jason was sitting on the couch with Roy and Tim on either side of him. Tim was against the arm of the couch with his legs crossed under him and a soda can sitting on the side table next to him. Jason and Roy were both sprawled out with their feet resting on the longer coffee table that sat between the couch and TV. They kept trying to sabotage each other by kicking each other in the shin, so their beer bottle were sitting safely on the outside of their legs. The three of them were playing Mario Kart together, the screen lit up with the bright colors of rainbow road.

Kyle was having dinner with Guy, their missions had kept the two lanterns on other side of the galaxy recently and they wanted to catch up while they were both on Earth, while Kori was spending the weekend with Donna and Raven. Jason wasn't exactly sure what the three of them were doing, but Kori had seemed happy about it.

Despite the fact that neither Kyle or Kori were expected to be back until later that night, Jason didn't panic when he heard the door opening.

"Hey Camilla," Jason called.

"Hello," Camilla answered. He was focused on making sure he didn't go careening off the side of the map, so he didn't look over at her but he could hear her slipping out of her shoes and closing the door.

"Did you pick up hair-dye on your way over like I asked?"

"Yes," Camilla said. "I got [silver](http://cdn-wpmsa.defymedia.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2014/07/Gray-hair-vintage-roll-curls.jpg) this time. I think the metallic coloring will be different enough from the white for you to like it. I picked up some purple just in case you don't though."

[](http://cdn-wpmsa.defymedia.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2014/07/Gray-hair-vintage-roll-curls.jpg)

"I don't mind trying it."

"I figured you wou-" she cut herself off abruptly. Jason made sure that Princess Daisy reached the finish line then turned to look at Camilla. She was standing in the doorway that transitioned the small entry hall into their open living room, staring at the three of them on the couch. When their eyes met, Jason raising one brow in a silent question, Camilla said, "Jason, did you know that Timothy Drake-Wayne is sitting on your couch?"

"What?" Tim said, reacting to his name. He'd just gotten his own character across the finish line, something that had Roy cursing as he came in behind both of them, so he turned to see who had spoken. When he spotted Camilla, a smile came over his lips. "You must be Camilla right? It's nice to finally meet you."

"I would say the same, but I haven't heard anything about you."

"Yeah you have," Jason said. Camilla's eyebrows raised. "I told you about my siblings when you dyed my hair purple."

Camilla paused for a moment then she said, voice giving away just how caught off guard she was, "Timothy Drake-Wayne is one of your siblings?"

"Yes," Jason said. Then he added, "He's the only brother that I actually like."

"Dick would cry if he heard you say that," Tim remarked.

"I live to make Dick Grayson cry," Jason answered.

It was, maybe, a little harsh, but the only people in the room right now were Camilla, who didn't know Dick Grayson, and Roy and Tim, who had their own problems with him. Jason just thought it was a little hypocritical that Dick got to treat Jason like shit for taking over the Robin mantle, but when Jason treated Tim like shit for the exact same thing he got racked over the coals for it. Admittedly, Jason had taken it a little further than Dick had. But Jason had been mentally distressed and traumatized. Dick had just been living up to his name.

Tim and Roy both laughed at that.

Camilla didn't, Jason wasn't entirely certain if that was because she was by far the best of them or if that was because she simply didn't know Dick Grayson, but Jason wasn't entirely concerned about that.

Instead, he watched as she slowly pieced together the things he had told her over the past months. He could tell she was thinking about the number of Wayne siblings and the number of siblings Jason had mentioned. His inclusion of Barbara and Stephanie might have tripped her up, but she'd already met Barbara and if he was including her than it wouldn't be a stretch for him to include Stephanie who was often seen in public with Cassandra and Tim. He knew she was thinking about this conversation and how they'd spent most of their game night with Barbara complaining about Dick, something that Kyle and Camilla had just sort of gone along with. She was younger than he was by a few years, so she hadn't quite yet been a teenager when Jason Todd, son of Bruce Wayne, had died. She probably hadn't been that interested in the Waynes and celebrity gossip. But the Gotham media never let Jason's memory die, always pushing the family about it when April was around, and he knew that she had enough knowledge now to put the pieces together.

He was okay with that.

"Come on," Jason said, pushing himself to his feet. Camilla had been staring off as she thought, but now she focused back on him. "The three of us just finished a grand prix, so you and I head to the bathroom and do my hair. Then we'll have time to hang out afterwards without worrying about your curfew."

And despite everything that Jason had just dropped on her, Camilla just nodded and smiled. "Alright. Let's do this."

* * *

Even though Jason was sure she had a million questions, Camilla didn't ask any of them when they crammed into the apartment's bathroom. Instead as they got settled, Camilla started telling him how someone had shown up for her ten o'clock absolutely reeking of vodka and how she'd spent the entire class period trying to figure out which kid it was so she could figure out if they were currently drinking or just hungover from the night before.

Just as they started applying dye to his hair, Tim and Roy entered the room. Jason had been bent over a little bit, Camilla always started at his roots and worked outwards, but he'd raised an eyebrow when they walked in. Tim had just shrugged while Roy told him that hanging out in the bathroom had seemed like more fun than getting his ass kicked in Mario Kart again.

Jason thought that maybe Camilla might ask questions then, now that Tim was around as a reminder of Jason's connection to the Wayne's. She did ask questions, but they weren't the questions that Jason was expecting. She didn't ask about Jason's supposed death or his estrangement from the family.

Instead she asked Tim if he had any embarrassing stories from Jason's childhood. Tim told her that he and Jason hadn't been close when they were younger since Jason had been living with his mother when Bruce had taken Tim in. Tim referring to Talia as his mother reminded Jason in part of why he liked Tim so much, because despite Tim had all sorts of problems with Ra's but he never projected those problems into Jason's life. He understood that Jason's relationship with Talia was different then his relationship with Ra's and he never tried to merge the two, not like Bruce or Dick who seemed to think that them having bad blood with Talia meant that Jason to as well.

Camilla had sighed a bit, telling Tim that that was a shame.

Tim responded by telling Camilla that while he hadn't been there, he had heard a few stories about Jason from their grandfather that he was willing to share.

Camilla and Roy were both eager to hear the stories that Alfred had, so Jason just sighed and resigned himself to reliving some of his most embarrassing moments.

Tim told them about the time when Jason broke one of the windows in the manor. Knowing that Jason enjoyed the sport, Roy asked if Jason had sent a baseball through it. Tim shook his head, telling them that Jason had sent the baseball _bat_  through the window because he'd let go of it during his swing. Tim told them about the time that Jason helped Alfred cook soup for a sick Bruce and how, when Alfred had turned around to grab some vegetables, Jason had gotten the salt and sugar mixed up. When Camilla what had happened, Tim informed her that Bruce had apparently thanked Jason and ate the entire thing despite the off taste. Tim told them how Jason had been, and still was, a huge fan of Wonder Woman and how Jason had been adamant that he was going to marry the original Wonder Girl. Roy and Camilla both found that hilarious, albeit for different reasons. Jason just shrugged that off, telling them that he wasn't even embarrassed about that because there wasn't a single decent person on earth who wasn't in love with at least one of them.

That had the conversation devolving into an argument about each of their favorite female superheroes. Jason defended Wonder Woman and both Wonder Girls, even if he hadn't really interacted with the second Wonder Girl. Roy and Tim were also predictable in their picks - Roy throwing in for Black Canary and Tim with Batgirl. Jason had been expecting Camilla to side with Batgirl as well, since she was a Gotham native, but she surprised them all by coming out in favor of the female Green Lantern. Jason made a note to tell Kyle about that when he got back. Camilla didn't know their identities, though giving that they lived with someone as high profile as Starfire she had to suspect something, but Kyle would still like that Camilla's favorite female hero was Jessica. Jessica Cruz was another hero that Jason didn't know very well, though Kyle adored the girl and her partner and had spent hours complaining about the fact that they were both too afraid to ask the other out.

It was a silly ridiculous conversation, but it was one that was fun and that Jason enjoyed having. Even when they got so passionate in their defense that they started shouting despite the way the words bounced around the tiny room.  
  
He'd been prepared to answer any questions Camilla had, wouldn't have told her she could come over while Tim was around if he hadn't been ready to talk, but there was something reassuring about the fact that she didn't ask him anything.

It felt like she was telling him that the things she didn't know about him didn't matter, because the things she did know about him had been all she needed to form a friendship with him. It felt like she was telling him that what she knew about him had been enough for him to become important to her. It felt like she was telling him that who he was now was someone good and worth her time.

And to Jason, who had spent most of his second life being treated as though nothing he had done or did was good enough for his father, that trust in who he had become was the best possible thing Camilla could have given him.

* * *

 

"Good job team!" Stephanie declared as soon as her feet hit the rooftop that Jason and Cassandra were on. All three of them were dressed in their gear. There was a wide grin on her face. It was constructed partially from the happiness of a job well done, but also partially from the sharp adrenaline of the mission. "Hood, buck-o, really nice job blowing that shit up." She flashed Jason two thumbs up. Jason couldn't help the small smile that settled on his lips. There was something about Stephanie's enthusiasm that was infectious. "And Black Bat! I'm a big fan of everything you do, but I'm an especially big fan of the way you took all those guys down. Totally swoon worthy."

Cassandra smiled, small but filled with affection for Stephanie, and said a quiet, "Thank you." 

"You did good too, Batgirl," Jason told her. Usually he would've called her blondie, but he knew how proud of the Batgirl mantle she was, how proud she was that Barbara and Cassandra trusted her with it. She had done damned good tonight and she deserved to know that she was doing the mantle proud. "I really enjoyed the way you nailed that one guy in his nuts."

Cassandra tacked on, "Swoon worthy."

"Ah shucks," Stephanie said, waving her hand at them. "You two are gonna make me blush."

Jason just laughed at her before looking over at Cassandra, "You gonna let Oracle know we're done?" Cassandra nodded in reply.

The words reminded Jason of just how good his relationship with Barbara was right now. She rarely trusted someone with the Birds of Prey, especially when the members in question were Cassandra and Stephanie. They were talented, but they were young. Cassandra might have had experience, but it didn't make Barbara feel any better about sending her and Stephanie into a dangerous situation. The fact that Barbara had trusted Jason with them, especially when there were full-fledged heroes that weren't allowed near Birds of Prey missions, said a lot. 

As she turned her attention to the communicator in her hands, Jason lifted his hand to the latches on his helmet and started undoing them. 

He wasn't very close to either of the girls since they hadn't been around when he'd had his first show down with Bruce after his resurrection, but he'd been growing closer to them since he and the outlaws had settled down in Gotham. It helped that all of them were close to Tim. 

He was comfortable enough with them to feel okay taking his helmet off. 

When he pulled it off, Jason tucked it under one of his arms and used his other hand to dig in his pocket for his cigarettes. He always felt like smoking after blowing something up. Explosions were nice, but they never failed to put him on edge and remind him of that warehouse he'd died in. Smoking helped him get his nerves under control. 

He'd just closed his fingers around the carton when Stephanie said, "Whoa! Hood, I know you died and all, but you can't be that old."

Pulling the cigarettes from his pocket, Jason looked up at Stephanie and raised one eyebrow. "What are you talking about?"

"Gray hair," Cassandra remarked, apparently having already finished messaging Barbara. 

"Oh." Jason hummed a bit, slamming the packet against his open palm. "The dye must be fading. It was silver when we first did it. Looked pretty cool actually."

"Dye? You did this on purpose?" Stephanie asked. Jason gave a small nod. "Why?"

"I wanted to," Jason said, but didn't offer any more information. He was growing closer to the girls, but he wasn't yet at the point where it felt okay to unload his low self-esteem on them. 

There was a long moment where both girls seemed to be considering whether or not to ask anything else about it. 

Eventually they seemed to decide that they couldn't ask about it. Jason appreciated that. He liked them and he _did_  want to get closer to them, but Jason had had enough of people thinking they had a right to his life story or prying into stories that Jason didn't want to tell. 

When Stephanie spoke again, she said, "How mad do you think B would be if I dyed my hair purple?"

"You know," Jason said, amusement rising in his chest, "Tim and I were just talking about that the other day."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hi everyone! I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
> 
> 2) Cass and Stephanie were each supposed to have their own chapters, but when I wrote this it seemed better to include them together for some reason? I guess because I like the two of them together.


	8. orange wakes you up

"There are far too many people in this bathroom," Jason said. "It's starting to feel more claustrophobic then my coffin."

Damian clicked his tongue. "That was tactless, Todd."

"It wasn't even a good death joke," Tim said.

"Yeah," Stephanie said, nodding her head. "You could do way better than that."

Cass let out a small hum that sounded more agreeing than not.

Jason and Camilla had picked the colors out for Jason's next dye job, [a mixture of oranges, reds, and yellow to create a sunset effect](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/e4/d3/ce/e4d3ce45a13c247da30c82537e9904ff--hair-color-streaks-hair-color-black.jpg), but Camilla had gotten a text from her mother about an impromptu family dinner and had to run off. Jason had considered pushing off the redye until the next weekend, but the silver was fading quickly and he was loathe to let it go back to white. He'd asked Damian if he wanted to dye his hair again on a whim. He'd been kind of surprised when the boy had answered his text with an almost immediate yes.

Jason had figured that Damian wanted to hear about Talia, and Jason was happy to oblige if all Damian wanted was stories about their mother, but Damian had shown up an hour later with Tim, Stephanie, and Cassandra in tow. Jason had been surprised about the entourage, knowing how much Tim and Damian didn't get along. When he asked why there were all there, Damian told him that Alfred hadn't been available to give him a ride and Tim was the only option. Jason thought that probably wasn't true, he was almost certain Dick would've happily driven the kid over, but he appreciated that Damian had asked Tim rather than Dick. Tim had, apparently, been out with Stephanie and Cassandra when Damian had called for a ride and instead of dropping Stephanie off at home the three of them had decided to come to Jason's with Damian.

Jason didn't really mind.

He was getting used to the fact that thinking about family didn't bring up memories that he'd rather forget, that instead it made him think of too many people squeezed into a tiny bathroom and the smell of sharp unpleasant smell of hair-dye.

Tim, Stephanie, and Cassandra had squeezed themselves into the bathtub. Jason liked to complain about the bathroom being too small for all the people that decided to squeeze themselves into when he was dyeing his hair, but the bathtub was _definitely_ too small for three almost-twenty year olds. They were a pile of sharp knees and elbow just waiting to accidentally stab someone else in the bathtub. Jason anticipated that at least one of them would end up moving before they finished with his hair.

Since he was the one applying the dye, Damian stood directly in front of Jason.

"You know what?" Jason said. "I've decided that people who haven't died don't get opinions on my death jokes."

"I died," Damian said as he dotted his fingers against Jason's roots. "My statement stands."

"I did too!" Stephanie piped in.

"Damian gets a pass," Jason said. He pointed out towards Stephanie. "You don't. You faked it."

"That doesn't mean that my death was any less valid than yours!" Stephanie exclaimed. When Jason just snorted in amusement, she added, "I can not believe you're being so blasé about the death of your favorite sibling!"

"Tim never died," Jason said.

Stephanie was quiet for a moment. She must have decided that arguing about whether or not she was more liked than Tim wasn't worth it, likely because she knew it was an argument she wouldn't win, because she corrected, "I can not believe you're being so blasé about the death of your favorite sister!"

"I was paralyzed." Jason couldn't turn his head when Damian was applying dye, but he glanced over to find Barbara had wheeled herself into the bathroom doorway. She'd been out in the kitchen making herself a cup of tea, but apparently she'd finished with that and decided she could fit into the bathroom with the rest of them. Jason had texted her when he'd been bombarded with four teenagers and instead of rescuing him, she'd decided it was some kind of family bonding experience and come over as well. "I didn't die."

"Exactly," Jason said. "My favorite sister didn't die. She was paralyzed."

* * *

Since all of them hanging out had been sort of impromptu and unplanned, Jason hadn't really been expecting them to hang around very long. He figured they'd spend the two or so hours it took to dye Jason's hair, the process always took way longer when they were putting more colors in and Damian was obsessive about making sure he mixed them in a way that looked nice, then they'd say there goodbyes and the kids would head back to the manor while Barbara headed back to her place and Jason would be left with an empty apartment until Roy and Kori got back from their date.

Instead Stephanie started pestering Jason to buy her dinner and once Stephanie had started that Tim started demanding the sort of delicious, greasy food that Alfred would never let them have in the manor. Cassandra had seemed neutral, but the second Tim started talking about chicken tenders and fries she'd made the sort of sound that made it clear exactly how delicious she thought that sounded. Jason had expected Damian to object, but instead his youngest sibling had said he didn't care what they got for dinner as long as someone made sure to get him something vegetarian.

Barbara hadn't had an opinion on the food, but she was adamant that if they were getting take out they were watching a movie and as the oldest she got to pick they watched. They all knew better than to argue with Barbara, so no one said anything when she wheeled her way into the living room to pick one while Damian and Jason were washing Jason's hair after the final setting period.

Jason hadn't really been expecting them to hang around, but if he was honestly he was kind of happy that they were. His relationships with them were tentative and new. But he cared about each of them in his own way and he _wanted_ to strengthen those relationships.

And if doing that meant that occasionally he had to spend a night eating food from the bar down the street and watching Hackers again? Well, that was a price Jason was happy to pay.

* * *

"I really thought Alfred was joking when he said lil D had come over here to dye your hair."

Jason looked over at the window, careful to make sure he only moved his head and didn't jostle Stephanie was sleeping on his lap, and found Dick was standing in front of it, already dressed in his Nightwing costume.

Instead of a greeting, Jason asked, "Why are you in my apartment?"

"None of them showed up for patrol," Dick said, gesturing to the group sprawled, sleeping across Jason's living room.

Barbara was taking up the other couch, legs sprawled out in front of her with her back against the arm and a blanket wrapped around her shoulders like a shawl. Damian was on the same couch as Jason, propped up against the other arm with his legs folded under him. Stephanie was between Damian and Jason, her head lying on Jason's lap and her feet tucked under Damian's shins. There'd been some arguing about their positions at first, but Hackers was one of Barbara's favorite movies and she refused to listen to them argue through it. Tim and Cassandra were curled up together in the loveseat with their legs tangled together on the foot rest.

"There is at least three trackers on each of them," Jason said.

"I didn't say that I was looking for them," Dick said. "I came over to make sure everything was okay."

Jason felt a rush of anger. He snapped out, "I'm not going to hurt them, Dick." He made sure to put just the right amount of emphasis on Dick's name to make his meaning a little more clear. Dick's lips thinned. It was only for a moment, but Jason felt validated nonetheless.

"Jason, I know that," Dick said."I didn't think that you were going to hurt them. I thought that maybe they were over here because _you_  were hurt and they were helping you."

Jason's eyes narrowed just a bit. "Why would you come all the way across town just because I might have been hurt?"

Dick's gaze softened. "You're my brother, Jay. Crossing the city to get to you is the least of things I'd do if you were hurt."

The thing about Dick Grayson was that he was an excellent brother, but that he hadn't always been that way. He was a good brother to the rest of their siblings, Barbara excluded since that relationship had always been a bit different, but he had never been a good brother to Jason. Before Jason's death, Dick had been distant. He had been angry at Bruce and mostly uninterested in Jason. Jason had a few good memories of Dick back then, there was one time when Dick had come to see Alfred when Jason was home sick and the two of them had ended up playing video games together all day, but mostly their relationship involved Jason ducking out of rooms before the awkward tension between Bruce and Dick became too much for him to deal with.

But there was something about the situation now - something about Jason having a living room full of their sleeping younger siblings and Dick looking at him with a soft, earnest expression while telling Jason that there was very little he wouldn't do to help Jason if he was hurt - that made Jason think that maybe Dick could be brothers in a way that they hadn't been before.

Jason had managed to reconnect with Barbara, to get over the things in their past so they could grow closer.

Maybe he and Dick could do the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! There's only one after this [the big man himself]!


	9. love yourself as if you were a rainbow with gold at both ends

"You know what," Jason said. Camilla hummed quietly, still focused on the row of hair dye in front of her as she sorted carefully through the colors in search of something to use to redo Jason's hair. "Let's just get as many as we can carry and go absolutely batshit crazy with it."

Camilla looked over at Jason, her hand stilling on a shade of mint green she'd been looking at. "What?"

"Pick as many colors as you can carry," Jason repeated, gesturing to the rows in front of them. "Let's just put them all in at once."

"Are you sure?" Camilla asked.

Jason thought about how he passed the mirror in the bathroom every morning and how seeing himself in the reflection no longer had anger balling in his chest, how it no longer brought up memories of crow bars and ticking bombs and fire. He thought about how he'd found an open sketchbook in one of their drawers and how he hadn't felt sick when he saw a picture of him Kyle had drawn, how he'd felt embarrassed instead because he'd been able to look past his hair and see how much love Kyle had put into the picture. Jason thought about how his younger siblings took photos constantly and how Jason didn't mind when they pull him into a photo, how he was able to smile when Stephanie placed an arm around his shoulder and reeled him in to the photo even though he knew she was making bunny ears behind his head.

Jason thought about how many good days he'd had since he started dyeing his hair. There had been bad days, nights when he couldn't sleep because the nightmares felt so real that his skin burned and days when Jason snapped at everyone and struggled not to kill a target that he and the Outlaws were chasing, but for the first time since his resurrection the good days were overwhelming out numbered them.

He thought about how all of this had started because he'd decided to dye his hair, because he'd decided to take a chance and try something new.

"Yeah," Jason agreed. "Let's do it."

Camilla watched him for a moment, then she nodded.

"Alright," she said, a grin on her face as she turned back to the shelves in front of her. "Let's make a [rainbow in your hair](https://onhaircuts.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/7.-Purple-pink-rainbow-dyed-hair-color-inspiration.jpg)."

Smiling, Jason crouched down next to her. "We should go with the pastels for it. I like them."

"Pastels huh?" Camilla said. She leaned a bit, bumping her shoulder against Jason's. "You like to act like your a badass, but you're actually just a giant softie aren't you?"

"I am a badass," Jason said. "Pastels don't change the fact that I could kick your ass."

"That doesn't prove your point at all. A strong gust of wind kicks my ass," Camilla said.

"I see your point," Jason said. He bumped his shoulder against hers the way she had done to him. Given the difference in their sizes, his movement had her teetering awkwardly for a moment. As she righted herself again, he reached forward and grabbed a box of advertising a soft, but bright and vivid pink. "Consider, however, that this color is badass and would look awesome in my hair."

* * *

"All the pretty birds on Jaybird street-"

"Shut up," Jason said, not bothering to look at Roy. He heard Roy snickering and the sound of one of the stools being pulled away from the island behind him. "I have good memories of that song which I refuse to let you ruin with your horrible singing."

"Of course you do," Roy answered, voice heavy with amusement.

"I find that most songs sound better when Roy isn't singing them," Kori observed.

Jason let out a loud, huffing laugh while Roy made a soft sound of hurt. "Ouch, babe. You went straight for the jugular on that one, didn't you?"

"I did not attack you."

"It's an expression," Jason said. He grabbed the plate in front of him, stacked with enough chicken-bacon ranch wraps for the three of them, and turned around. Roy had settled down on one of the island stools, but Kori was still standing next to him. She was leaned into him, not enough for Roy to be supporting her weight but enough that their sides were pressed together. After all the pain both of them had been through, Jason liked seeing them with each other and knowing that they were happy. "Here. Lunch." When they stared at him instead of immediately reached for food, he said, "What?"

"Your hair," Kori said. She lifted her hand up, waiting until Jason leaned forward to touch the strands. Her fingers were gentle, careful not to pull as she touched. "It looks beautiful, Jason."

"I didn't know you could fit that many colors into that small of a space," Roy mused. "Camilla did a really good job."

"She did," Jason agreed. He'd suggested they go full out on a whim, without really knowing how it would end up looking once they put so many colors in at once. Camilla hadn't had a lot to work with given how little of Jason's hair they were dyeing, the streak was thick and noticeable but it was still only a streak, but she'd done an excellent job of highlighting each color they'd picked. When Kori pulled her hand away, Jason moved so he could grab one of the stools on his side of the counter. As he settled himself down, he asked, "You guys like it then?"

"Yes," Kori said, nodding insistently. "This is very beautiful and it very you."

"A rainbow is very me?" Jason questioned, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Yeah," Roy agreed, which surprised Jason even more. Kori's train of thought was hard to follow sometimes and she often made statements that neither of them could entirely follow, but for Roy to agree with her was something else. "She's right. It suits you."

"How?" Jason said. He liked what Camilla had done and he thought he looked damn good with it, but he couldn't see how something like this suited him to the extent that Roy and Kori seemed to think it did.

"Rainbows are very hopeful. They show up after a storm and make people feel better despite all of the rain," Kori said. Her smile went soft as she looked at Jason. "It is something that suits you very well."

* * *

"Are you planning on eating that cheesecake at all?" Jason asked, pointing his own fork towards the plate in front of Kyle. The two of them were sitting in a small cafe, enjoying a quiet afternoon together now that Kyle was back on Earth. "Or are you just going to sit there drawing me?"

"I'm going to eat the cheesecake while I draw you," Kyle said. He didn't even bother looking up from the drawing he was doing as he reached out with his non-dominate hand to slice his fork through the cheesecake and brought it to his mouth. Jason mourned the loss a little bit. Usually Jason tried to make sure that Kyle didn't forget to eat when he went on an artistic binge, but Jason had been hoping to take advantage of Kyle's distraction to eat an extra piece of the really delicious cheesecake they'd both ordered. "But I refuse to leave until I finish this piece because I'm never going to get lightning this good in the apartment, so you might as well order yourself another piece."

Jason hummed a little bit. "You'll pay for it?"

"You have money," Kyle said, sounding a little amused.

"You've been gone for a month," Jason pointed out. "The least you could do now that you're back is buy me a piece of cheesecake."

"I already bought you a piece of cheesecake," Kyle said.

"And now you're buying me another one," Jason said.

Jason looked away from Kyle, searching the waitress, he thought her name was Felicity, that had been serving them. When he caught sight of her, however, he found that she was crouched down speaking to a little girl wearing a floofy, yellow play dress. The little girl was holding a plastic wand with a bright red heart shaped fake jewel on the top and a silver tiara with a similar fake heart-shaped jewel was nestled against her brown curls. The girl clearly wasn't paying attention to the waitress, because she was looking all around the cafe instead of at the older woman.

The second she caught sight of Jason her eyes went wide.

Jason was worried that he'd done something to scare the girl for a moment, but then the girl was darting away from the waitress and towards him.

"Rayna!" Felicity shouted.

"Hello," Jason said when the little girl, Rayna, skidded to a stop next to his and Kyle's table. He glanced at the woman hurrying over to them before looking down at the girl with a smile. "I think someone is looking for you."

She ignored him, instead asking, "Are you a fairy prince?"

"What makes you think that?"

Rayna lifted a hand, pointing towards Jason's hair. "You have pretty, fairy hair."

"Oh, I see," Jason said. He considered for only a moment before leaning close to her. He made sure that Felicity was close enough to   
hear them before saying, "I am, but you have to keep that a secret okay? Sometimes people aren't very nice to fairys."

"I understand," Rayna said, nodding safely.

Jason felt his smile widening, amused by how serious she was taking their discussion. He asked, "And you must be a princess, yes?"

A wide grin spread across the little girl's face. She nodded, "Yes!"

"I could tell," Jason said. He reached out, tapping the crown on her head. "Only princesses have crowns like this."

Seeing a gap in the conversation, Felicity stepped forward. She set her hands on the little girl's shoulders. "I am so sorry. My mother wasn't supposed to drop her off for another half hour, but an emergency came up."

"It's no problem," Jason dismissed. He thought about what Felicity had said before saying, "I don't know what you were planning on doing, but the two of us are going to be here a while if you'd like someone to watch her."

She looked a little surprised at the offer. "Really? Are you sure about that?"

"Yeah," Jason said, nodding a bit. "You seem to be working hard and I like kids, so I figure I can make your job a little easier by looking after her for half an hour. And I know it might make you a little uncomfortable to leave her with strangers, but if she sits with us you'll know where to check up on her and you won't have to worry about any other strangers walking up to her table or her wandering off."

Felicity seemed to debate for a moment before she looked down at Rayna. She asked, "Would you be okay sitting here with..."

"Jason," Jason offered. He gestured across the table, "And Kyle."

"Would you be okay sitting here with Jason and Kyle while mama finishes her shift?"

Rayna nodded eagerly. "Yes! Mr. Jason and I can talk about princesses!"

Felicity worried at her lip for another moment before nodding. "Alright. If you're sure it's not a problem to watch her."

"Not at all," Jason assured. He kicked out the chair next to him, patting the seat of it. "Why don't you take a seat here, Princess Rayna?"

"Okay," Rayna agreed.

"And," Jason said, looking up at Felicity, "is there anyway we could get two more pieces of cheesecake? And whatever kind of juice Princess Rayna likes?"

"Oh, you don't have to-"

"I want to," Jason assured. Felicity fretted for another moment before nodding. She dropped a backpack next to Rayna's chair and pressed a kiss against the girl's head before walking off towards another table. He turned his attention back to Rayna, "So, Princess, why don't you tell me all about your Kingdom?"

"It's filled with rainbows," Rayna began without so much as a pause.

Jason propped his elbow up on the table, resting his chin in his palm and making sure to give the girl his full attention.

He was so focused on her that he didn't notice Kyle smiling at him, soft and affectionate, or see when Kyle flipped the page in his sketchbook. Later, though, Kyle would take a picture of his sketchbook before ripping out a drawing to give to Rayna - one of a young princess wearing a yellow dress along with a small flying fairy prince with rainbow colored hair. 

* * *

"Can I have some cookies to take home with me?" Jason asked, reaching forward to take another cookie from the plate sitting in front of him.

"I have a small tub of them set aside for you to take back to your apartment," Alfred answered. Jason let out a pleased hum. He would have to share with Kori, Roy, and Kyle when he got home, but he could still eat more at home than he could during the time he was at the manor. As he stirred the pot of soup sitting on the stove, he said, "Be careful not to eat too many cookies before lunch, Master Jason."

"I won't," Jason said. Alfred's cookies were great, but Jason wasn't going to waste an opportunity to eat some of Alfred's cooking as well.

Alfred hummed a little bit before placing the lid back on the soup. He turned back to Jason, saying, "We have about ten minutes before it finishes."

"Okay," Jason said.

Alfred made his way to the counter, sitting down across from Jason and reaching for his tea cup. "You've gone for quite a bold look with your hair this month, haven't you?"

"Yeah," Jason said.

"It's been done quite well," Alfred observed. "Did Master Damian do it?"

Jason let out a soft laugh. "No. Damian does a job when he does it, but this is a bit advanced for him."

"Miss Camilla then?"

"Yes," Jason said. "She did a really great job, right?"

"She did," Alfred said, nodding a little bit. "You should bring her to lunch sometime soon. I'd love to meet anyone who has such a positive effect on your life."

"Yeah," Jason said, thinking about Camilla. He thought about how much he loved Kori and Roy, but how his friendship with them was so wrapped up in his first life and his family and his life as a vigilante. Camilla was someone whose friendship had nothing to do with Jason before his death, who had nothing to do with Jason having been Robin or currently being the Red Hood. Camilla made Jason feel like a normal twenty-two year old, sometimes Jason forgot that he had died at all when he was with her, and that was something that Kori and Roy were never going to be able to do. Camilla helped Jason heal by dyeing his hair for him, but she also helped him heal just by being there with him. "She usually has class around now, but maybe the three of us can get something from a restaurant near her campus."

"That sounds like a plan," Alfred agreed. He brought his tea cup to his lips, taking a small sip. When he was done he said, "Now, why don't you tell me what you've been up to."

* * *

"So," Jason said, dropping a stack of books onto the library counter, "I was wondering if you might be interested in taking up an old job."

"Which job would that be?" Barbara asked. She finished scanning the book in her hand before shifting her attention away from the desktop and moving to the area of the counter in front of Jason. She raised an eyebrow when she saw the books that Jason was trying to check out. "Textbooks?"

"I was hoping you'd be willing to pick up a few tutoring hours again," Jason said.

"You want me to tutor you?"

"Maybe," Jason said, nodding a little bit. "I'm thinking I'm going to try for my GED."

Barbara's face filled with shock. She looked up from the textbook she'd just grabbed from Jason's pile. "Really?"

Jason had toyed with the idea back when Tim had started university, but he'd ended up dismissing it. Back then the idea of living that kind of normal life - of getting his GED and going to university and getting a real job - had seemed like an impossible thing. Camilla had gotten Jason thinking about it again, though, because she was more like him. She didn't come from a place as bad as he did, but she wasn't from somewhere where college was an incredibly popular or common choice. She wasn't letting that stop her though. She was determined to graduate.

Now that Jason's life was starting to feel a bit more normal, now that he was starting to feel like his second life wasn't such a curse, he was starting to think that maybe he could graduate too.

"I haven't decided for sure yet. I want to see where I might stand if I did before I make a decision," Jason said. "But I wanted to see if you'd be up for earning some extra cash and tutoring like me like you did before? Things always made more sense when you explained them."

"Of course I'll help you, Jason," Barbara said. "And you don't need to pay me for it.

"Are you sure?" Jason asked. "I can afford whatever Bruce was giving you the first time."

"Bruce was only paying me the first time because I needed money for college. I would have done it for free if I hadn't needed to save so badly," Barbara said. She smiled at him. "And since I don't need the money now, I am more than happy to tutor my favorite little brother for free."

"Your favorite huh?"

"Of course," Barbara said. She added, "Though Cassandra and Stephanie are both my favorite siblings."

"Fair enough," Jason agreed. Jason said thought about how each of the three oldest had a different favorite, covering each of the four youngest and giving each of them someone they could confide in. The family had knitted itself together in a way that meant that even when one of them argued with Bruce, they had a sibling they could confide in and trust to take their side. None of them would ever be alone the way Jason had been prior to his death. "I found some practice tests online that I'm going to take this weekend. I'll call you after and let you know if I decide to take it?"

"Why don't we just get lunch on Sunday?" Barbara suggested. Finished scanning the last of the books Jason had grabbed, she pushed them back across the counter to him. "We can go to that sandwich shop on Florida and Fourth?"

"Sure," Jason agreed. He grabbed the books from the counter. "See you then."

"Yup. Good luck."

* * *

Jason settled down on the stool next to Damian, putting the laptop on the island on the counter in front of him.

"I'm pretty sure that you know this already, but you can not tell Bruce or Dick about this," Jason said, looking over at his youngest brother. The two of them were sitting in Jason's dining room, settled at the island. The others had cleared out for the afternoon, Roy and Kori going out on a date while Kyle went to have lunch with Hal and John, leaving the place free for the two of them.

"I know," Damian said, sounding irritated. "I don't have to be reminded like a child."

"I don't think you understand what the two of them are going to do to me if they find out I set this up for us," Jason said. He had set this up mostly for Damian, it'd been longer since he'd had contact with Talia, but Jason would be lying if he said he didn't want to speak to Talia as well. After everything Jason had gone through to find a mother, it was Talia that he had found and he loved her fiercely.

"I'm not going to tell either of them," Damian said.

Jason looked at him for moment before humming and looking back at the laptop. He didn't think that Damian was going to tell anyone about this. Damian loved Talia as fiercely as Jason did, but it'd been even longer since Damian had spoken to her and he had to miss her a lot more. He wouldn't tell Bruce or Dick about this and risk not being able to do this again.

He scrolled through his contacts in the messenger before finding the alias he wanted.

It was only a few moments after he pressed the call button that the screen lit up. Jason hadn't been worried per-say, but the fact that she'd picked up as quickly as she did was a pretty good sign that she'd been as eager for this call as the two of them.

Talia was sitting in a bedroom somewhere. It had to be one of her own safe houses, she wouldn't have risked calling them from anywhere her father knew about, but Jason couldn't pinpoint where. There was a wide window behind her with a view that made Jason think she might have been somewhere tropical, but it wasn't a view that he recognized immediately.

"Mother," Damian said, the word coming out a little choked.

"Damian," Talia said. There was a small smile on her lips and affection bright in her eyes. Neither wavered when she looked at him instead. "Jason."

"Hi T," Jason greeted.

He watched as Talia's eyes flickered up, looking up at the bright rainbow of hair that was front and center. "That's quite a change." Before Jason could answer, she looked over at Damian, "You haven't made any dramatic changes, have you love?"

It wasn't quite approval, but it wasn't disapproval either.

It was enough for Jason to relax, content to just listen to his mother and youngest brother catch up. 

* * *

"Why did I agree to this?" Jason asked himself as soon as the waitress walked away from the table.

"Because I'm going to San Francisco tomorrow and you thought it would be nice to treat your favorite brother to waffles before he left for two months," Tim said.

"Alright," Jason agreed. He pointed at Cassandra and Stephanie who were sitting next to Tim, all three of them squished together on one side of the booth while Jason sat across from them, and asked, "How did I end up buying waffles for the other two black holes?"

"Because we're adorable," Stephanie said. She leaned into Cassandra, putting an arm around her shoulders and drawing her in so their cheeks were pressed together. Stephanie flashed a large smile, showing off her teeth, while Cassandra gave a smaller, more reserved one. Stephanie gestured a finger between the two of them, "I mean really, how could anyone say no to faces like these?"

Jason considered putting her down for a moment, but then he thought about how Stephanie had been working on a case with Damian up until a few days ago. She would have spent the last week or so dealing with the little brat calling her fatso. Stephanie was good at ignoring Damian, because honestly no one cared what a ten year old had to say about their appearance, but Jason didn't think she deserved to have him insulting her appearance as well.

"You're right," Jason said, shrugging a bit. "I'm a sucker for a pretty face. I didn't stand a chance against two of them."

"Damn right you didn't," Stephanie said.

"It's a damn shame too," Jason said, "because the three of you are going to eat up all of my cash in one night."

"You were a crime boss," Tim said. "You have more then enough squirreled away from that."

"Yeah, squirreled away," Jason repeated. "Meaning, put somewhere that doesn't require me to spend it on teenagers that eat too many waffles."

"Jay," Cass said, speaking in that soft way of hers. Jason hummed, shifting his focus to her. "There is no such thing as too many waffles."

* * *

"My thighs have turned into jello," Dick said, collapsing down onto the bench in front of Jason. He bent down, digging his fingers into his thighs and kneading the flesh. "I thought I did a pretty balanced work out usually."

"It always hurts if you focus so much on a place that you don't usually give that much attention," Jason dismissed. The two of them were at the gym together. It was a sort of tentative arrangement they'd come up with. Jason had decided he wanted to try and build a relationship with Dick, but there were a lot of things between them that made building that relationship awkward. Going to the gym together was a good arrangement for them. It put them a neutral ground where they could decide on a day-to-day basis how much time they spent with each other and how much they wanted to interact with each other during that time.

"I'm never doing leg day with you again," Dick said. "Your thighs are overrated."

Jason hummed a bit as he reached towards his locker. "You should try saying that when Kyle's around. He has very strong opinions about my thighs. He'd love to argue with you about them."

Dick made a disgusted noise. "Jay, please. I don't want to hear about your sex life."

"I didn't say anything about my sex life," Jason said. "I just told you that Kyle likes my thighs. Was there an implication there that Kyle might like my thighs wrapped around his head or that he quite enjoys how strong thighs make it easier for me to ride him? Absolutely. But I didn't say it."

"Stop, stop, stop," Dick objected. Jason laughed as Dick reached up, putting his hands over his ears and stomping his feet childishly. "I don't need to know about any of my brothers' sex lives."

"I'm your only brother with a sex life," Jason pointed out. "Damian is ten and Tim hasn't gotten any since he and Tam called it off."

Dick opened his mouth to say something then stopped. "Really? I thought for sure Tim and-"

"Nope," Jason cut in. "I don't want to know what you thought because I am not going to sit here gossiping with you about Tim's love life."

"Because you don't know about it?"

"Because what Tim has told me about his love life was told in confidence," Jason replied. "I'm not betraying that confidence by telling you what he told me."

"Jay, no," Dick said. "You're part of the older siblings club. You have to drink mimosas and gossip about the rest of them with Barbara and I."

Jason was going to say something about how that seemed like a breach of trust, but then something else occurred to him. He said, "You talk about this shit show of a family while drinking _mimosas_?

"We start with mimosas," Dick corrected. "We move onto tequila once we reach the big stuff."

* * *

Jason had his head bent down as he searched through a bag hanging off his wrist for one of the books he'd bought so that he could start read it while he was waiting for the bus when he heard, "Jason."

Jason froze. He'd spent almost half a year carefully avoiding the speaker, both as Jason and as the Red Hood, after their last argument, so hearing his voice now caught Jason off guard.

"Jason," Bruce repeated, a soft sort of desperation entering the second syllable of Jason's name.

Jason took a deep breath before looking up from his bag.

Hearing Bruce speak was entirely different from seeing Bruce. His father was as large as ever, taller and wider than most men. Bruce's size should have terrifying to someone with Jason's background, but Jason had known that Bruce as Batman first and he'd always found Bruce's size comforting instead. Batman was large enough to protect him. The look in his face was a familiar one, straddling between happiness and pain. Jason hated that. He hated that Bruce looked at him like that, that Jason was such a disappointment that seeing him caused Bruce pain.

"Bruce," Jason said, unable to help the sharpness of the word. It was hard not to get defensive when Bruce was looking at him like that.

There was a moment where neither of them seemed to know what to say.

"I like your hair," Bruce said at last. Surprise pulsed through Jason at the compliment. He'd started dyeing his hair after his last fight with Bruce, an epic blow out following an Arkham escape which had ended up with Jason avoiding Bruce for six months, because he figured it was the ultimately form of rebellion. Bruce had always pushed them to keep from doing anything that would make it easy for people to identify them in costume. "It suits you."

Jason thought about Kori telling him the same thing earlier in the month and her reasoning for it.

"Thank you," he said at last.

"Did you just come from the bookstore?" Bruce asked, eyes glancing down to the bag in Jason's hand. It had twisted so the logo was obscured. "There was one down here that you liked when you were younger, wasn't there?"

"Yeah... Emma's," Jason said.

Bruce's lips twitched, a shadow of a smile fluttering across his smile. "Yes. I remember. After we went for the first time, you spent an hour telling Alfred how awesome you thought it was that it was named after a Jane Austen book."

"It _is_  awesome," Jason told him. Bruce smiled at him, the pain wiping from his expression and being replaced with fondness and indulgent amusement. Jason swallowed hard, trying to ignore the way his chest constricted when Bruce looked at him like that. He was careful to keep his voice steady as he said, "I should get going. I'm supposed to meet Kyle at the apartment."

"Oh." Bruce's face dropped. Jason hated the way his heart clenched, the way he hated making Bruce look like that. "I won't keep you then." Jason was still trying to figure out what the proper response to that was when Bruce added, "Maybe you could stop by the manor soon? We could have a cup of tea."

"Um...." A no was on the tip of Jason's tongue, but something had his hesitating. He wouldn't ever agree with Batman about the Joker or crime. He had been getting along with the entire family out of the costumes though. Red Hood would never agree with Batman, but maybe Jason and Bruce could start getting along again. Instead he said, "Maybe. I try to spend time with Kyle when he's in town, but....I'll see when he's leaving again and let you know?"

"I'd love that."

Me too, Jason thought. Me too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Thank you so much for reading this chapter and for reading this story as a whole! Thank you for all of the support you've showed for each chapter and for all of the characters. You've all been super kind and I hope you enjoyed the story!


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